PORT ANGELES – A half dozen local restaurants and Clallam County have reached a settlement in a lawsuit challenging the health officer’s vaccine mandate.
Yesterday, the prosecutor’s office announced an agreement was reached. Details of the settlement have not been released.
What is known, is the vaccine mandate is not going away. Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry says she has no immediate plan to lift the requirement people show proof they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter restaurants in Clallam County. But she says there may be a time down the road that mandate will be lifted. No firm timelines have been officially released.
Clallam, Jefferson, and King counties are the only ones in the state that have such a mandate.
In November, six local eateries sought an injunction to halt the mandate. They said it unconstitutionally targeted a single industry and harmed their freedom of commerce. It also said the county’s health officer failed to provide hard data to support the mandate.