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New York authorities have ordered the cancellation of a wedding that could have brought together more than 10,000 people in Brooklyn, in violation of crowding rules enforced due to the coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday.
The Rockland County sheriff’s office notified authorities of the huge wedding planned for next Monday in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, outside the areas of this district where there are outbreaks of the virus.
“We were told this was happening. We did an investigation and found that it was possibly true. There was a large planned wedding that would have violated the rules on meetings,” Cuomo told a news conference.
According to the local press, it was an important Orthodox Jewish wedding.
Meetings with 50 attendees
Phase four of New York’s reopening plan limits social gatherings to a maximum of 50 people. For religious events within temples the capacity must be limited to 33%.
Cuomo’s advisor Elizabeth Garvey told reporters that “more than 10,000 individuals were planning to attend” the wedding.
“Look, you can get married, but you just can’t invite a thousand people to your wedding. You get the same results at the end of the day. And it’s cheaper too!” The governor joked.
New York was the national epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring, which has left more than 23,800 dead in the city.
Then he managed to control the situation, but in recent weeks the rate of positive tests has risen in some neighborhoods of the city and the suburbs, especially in areas with a strong Orthodox Jewish population.
Cuomo last week decreed the closure of non-essential businesses for this month and limited attendance at religious temples in these neighborhoods to 10 people to try to prevent a second wave of the virus. Schools in these areas also closed their doors.
The governor said on Saturday that the measures applied are already giving good results. (I)
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