City of Chico provides hotline for reporting non-essential business violations

Chico City leaders say they've received many complaints about non-essential businesses that are still open and have a hotline people can call to voice concerns.

Stay at home order almost two weeks now..

That means only essential businesses should be open.

But are they?

Action news now reporter kristian lopez is live in downtown chico.

Kristianã you spoke to city leaders about non essential businesses being open.

What are they saying?

They tell me they're getting a lot of calls complaining non essential businesses being open.

They are giving this letter to those businessesã reminding them they could face up to a 1000 dollar fine essential businesses include things like- grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, banks, and transportation... non-essential businesses are things like gyms, hair and nail salons and bars and nightclubs&.

Chico city manager mark orme, says they have gotten many calls over the last week, of people who are reporting*non- essentia* businesses that are still open.... "what we've done is created a line the public can use to call in to share if there is what they deem a non-essential business that is operating, and that allows our team to go out and responsibly inform those businesses of the governor's order.

" orme says they do no* have the power to shut businesses down- but they*d* go out and educate them on the governor's order....and remind them of the potential punishments they could face..... he says they have received a high number of dispatch calls reporting violations - but says you should only use that number for emergencies.... if you want to report a concern about a non-essential business that is still open, you can call the "report a violation" hotline , live in chico kristian lopez action news now coverage you can count on.

You can find that number on our website action news now dot com, under newslinks.

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