BOISE, Idaho — On Friday night, Mountain Home Mayor Rich Sykes went on Facebook Live for over an hour to address the coronavirus in the city.
During the 76 minute long Facebook Live, Mayor Sykes threatened to shut down the city of Mountain Home if people don't start staying at home more to lessen the spread of the coronavirus.
Emore County, where Mountain Home is located in, recently received an F grade for people following Gov. Brad Little's stay at home order.
"We don't know how it's getting here so that's why we're trying to tell everyone stay home," Sykes said.
The mayor expressed his frustration with people buying makeup and lottery tickets during the pandemic and the fact liquor stores and Starbucks are still open. Then his Facebook Live took a drastic turn.
"If everyone continues to horse around and go to this store or that store, I'm going to shut everything down and that means restaurants, coffee shops, everything," he said. "Monday, I'm going to put his ordinance into place and that will be closing the city services all down if people continue to pow wow and hang out at stores and other places."
That ordinance could include Sykes asking the city's fire department to rope off areas inside stores and limiting how many people are allowed inside a store at once.
Sykes added that he is considering asking the town's police department to stop and question people driving within city limits with out of county license plates.
"I do not want to have to close down restaurants, I do not want to have to close down coffee shops, I don't want to limit people going to Walmart or Albertsons, I believe we're all adults," he said. "Just use common sense... the sooner we all stay home, the sooner this can all go away."
Mayor Sykes said he just thinking about shutting the city down but isn't doing anything yet.
KTVB has reached out to the mayor for comment but he has not responded at the time of this article being published.
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