FoxFire Takes Indoor Dining Fight To Illinois Supreme Court

GENEVA, IL — FoxFire restaurant is asking the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn a statewide indoor dining ban that it has been defying since October amid record coronavirus surges throughout the region.

Lawyers for the Geneva restaurant last week asked the state’s highest court to hear their case, which is one of dozens brought against Gov. J.B. Pritzker for imposing restrictions on restaurants and bars.

In late October, a Kane County judge granted FoxFire a temporary restraining order that blocked public health officials from enforcing an indoor dining ban put in place by Pritzker’s administration across Region 8, made up of Kane and DuPage counties.

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Judge Kevin Busch said he believes Pritzker has no authority to issue consecutive disaster proclamations, which underpin the Illinois Department of Public Health’s mitigation efforts.

FoxFire lost its temporary restraining order two weeks later when the Illinois 2nd District Appellate Court reversed Busch’s ruling. But the restaurant has not stopped serving customers indoors since the ban was put in place nearly two months ago, Capitol News Illinois reports.

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In his brief asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, FoxFire attorney Kevin Nelson urged justices to consider the "financial and economic destruction wrought by executive overreach" on restaurants and bars in Illinois.

"To permit this decision to stand as law of the land leaves the restaurant industry out in the cold and without legal redress," wrote Nelson, of the Geneva-based Myers, Earl and Nelson law firm.

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Attorney Greg Earl told Patch the firm believes "there is a strong public interest in the violations of due process and several questions of law that need answering."

The Illinois Supreme Court is not required to hear the case, and it has not yet ruled on other legal challenges to Pritzker’s authority to impose restrictions on businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic, Capitol News Illinois reports.

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The restaurant has not faced any disciplinary actions for its defiance of the indoor dining ban, but a spokesperson for the Kane County Health Department declined to comment due to pending litigation, the report states.

FoxFire's fight against the state's indoor dining ban has become a symbol of the resistance to coronavirus-related restrictions, which Nelson acknowledged in his recent brief to the Illinois Supreme Court.

"FoxFire has become emblematic of the right of small businesses to remain open, responsibly, free from the Governor's overreach," Nelson wrote.

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