BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest restriction on gatherings has legal experts pondering how exactly it will be enforced.
The governor on Wednesday afternoon announced that any organization that has a liquor license must close at 10 p.m. Gyms and fitness centers must also close at 10 p.m. The governor also announced that private homes can only have, at most, ten people during a gathering.
Legal experts wonder how the ten-person limit at homes can be enforced.
"If somebody from the health department came up to your house, knocked on the door, and said I want to see how many people are in there, I would say 'Where is your search warrant?'," WBEN legal analyst Paul Cambria said. "That would be the end of that. It's great and it's advisory and we should try to, where it's practical and reasonable, to follow something like that, but it seems to me it really makes it difficult to enforce."
Cambria also said the new rule presents a unique issue. How much control does the government have over the inside of one's home? He said it presents an interesting challenge that may be addressed in the future.
Like Cambria, Attorney Steve Cohen said the fourth amendment of the constitution grants citizens privacy in their own home.
"A search warrant, that's a skeleton key that gets them in," Cohen said. "No search warrant doesn't get them in."
Business owners in Erie County remain on edge over the possibility that their establishments will have to close again if Western New York enters the orange or red zone under the governor's cluster initiative. An orange zone designation would close high-risk businesses like gyms and hair salons. All non-essential businesses close under the red designation.
Amy Bueme of Catalyst Fitness told WBEN on Wednesday that she will not shut down and plans to fight the state rules.
Cambria said businesses face issues challenging the governor on his mandates, though they have a greater chance to defeat the governor in courts if their issues involve freedom of expression, such as the state's previous declaration that music had to be "incidental", which was ruled unconstitutional by a state judge.
"Others, which do not and are just regulations supposedly based on scientific evidence, is a matter of due process," Cambria said. "It's a different approach and a lot of the courts taken a position that they defer in favor of the state. But they can still be challenged if they don't have a substantial or rational basis."
When asked specifically about gyms and fitness centers, Cambria said they would have to liken themselves to another business that is allowed to stay open.
