‘Boneheaded’ Moment Haunts Newsom

California Republic flag and US flag over a sunny coastal boardwalk — Photo: gabriel12 / Shutterstock

California Governor Gavin Newsom just admitted his own COVID-19 shutdown orders were “insane,” but the restaurant owners who lost their livelihoods say the apology arrives years too late.

Story Snapshot

Newsom now says closing California beaches was “insane in hindsight” and calls his own French Laundry dinner “boneheaded.”
California banned outdoor dining statewide even though courts later found no solid data proving it spread the virus.
Nearly one-third of California restaurants closed for good, and Los Angeles County lost over 122,000 restaurant jobs.
One restaurant owner called Newsom’s apology “pathetic,” saying photos contradicted his claim that his own dinner was outdoors.
Courts split on the ban, with one judge calling it “arbitrary” while a federal judge found a “legitimate” government interest.

Newsom’s Sudden Confession

Newsom recently told interviewers that shutting down California beaches during the pandemic was “insane in hindsight.” He also called his own French Laundry dinner party, held while he told residents to stay home, a “boneheaded” decision. The remarks mark a rare public admission from a governor who spent years defending sweeping lockdown orders as necessary science-based policy.

The comments come as Newsom eyes a possible 2028 presidential run, and critics say the timing looks less like remorse and more like political repositioning ahead of a national campaign. Either way, the admission confirms what conservatives argued from the start: the rules were never as airtight as officials claimed.

The Ban That Crushed Small Business

California restaurants had to shut down all in-person dining, even outdoors, under Newsom’s stay-at-home orders. The state later lifted those restrictions and let outdoor dining resume once officials decided conditions had improved. But the damage during the shutdown was severe. California leisure and hospitality small-business openings fell 48.2 percent between January 2020 and March 2021.

Los Angeles County alone lost 122,700 restaurant jobs, a 33.7 percent decline, in that same window. A restaurant industry legal filing noted that every dollar spent at table-service restaurants, the businesses hit hardest by the outdoor ban, returns $2.03 to California’s economy. That is money that never came back for owners forced to close their doors.

Courts Split on Whether the Rule Ever Made Sense

The legal fight over the outdoor dining ban produced conflicting rulings. A federal judge sided with the state, finding California had a “legitimate governmental interest” in slowing the virus’s spread. But a Los Angeles Superior Court judge reached the opposite conclusion, ruling the county had acted “arbitrarily” and calling the closure order an abuse of emergency powers.

Health officials later admitted the original decision to close outdoor dining was not built on clear data. That gap between the government’s confident public messaging and the shaky evidence behind it is exactly the kind of overreach conservative voters have warned about since the pandemic began.

An Apology That Rings Hollow to Business Owners

Restaurant owners who lived through the shutdown are not impressed by Newsom’s newfound honesty. One restaurateur called the governor’s apology “pathetic,” saying Newsom claimed his infamous dinner was outdoors, “but then the photos surfaced” showing otherwise. Another owner in Redondo Beach called Newsom’s conduct “totally hypocritical” while his own restaurant fought to survive the ban.

A Los Angeles Times report at the time described the outdoor dining suspension as a “devastating blow” to the region’s restaurant and hospitality industry. Commentators now argue the ban was “understood to be ridiculous at the time” and led directly to permanent closures and mass layoffs across the state. For thousands of small business owners, Newsom’s regret changes nothing about what they already lost.