Coronavirus, gardens, 'sunbathing' etc.

[ShootsFruitAndLeaves]

You can legally sunbathe in your private garden all day long. But some people don't have gardens.

There are people complaining on social media to the police about people sunbathing on municipal land. Not large numbers of people, literally two people enjoying the sunshine and minding their own business. There are people replying that they will go out and assault them, etc.

There is in fact no law against sunbathing. It just seems to be bringing out the neighbourhood arseholes to try to enforce non-existent rules. Nobody is going to die because someone went out to the shop and decided to stop to sunbathe on a 16 acre meadow on the way home. Nobody. The 'but 1000 people died today' stuff is not related to that. Keep to your own household, don't mix with other people, don't leave home without a reasonable excuse.

the very expensive properties in built up areas that don’t have outdoor space

Those people probably have a garden in their other property

You are allowed out in public places to get to food shop, pharmacy, care for vulnerable person or exercise. Life isn't fair op :( I'm sorry but you definitely should not be lingering a public place and I hope the police crack down on it a bit more.

It's like the fact some people are isolating in one bed flats, others in enormous houses, some alone, some with family, some separated from partners. It's horrible and not fair but this is why it's a sacrifice!

@Flaxmeadow this! We are so entitled. I had to wait 2 weeks to get a chocolate bar and it felt like torture , but I acknowledged how ridiculous it was and I still waited for my full food shop.

Hopefully this all teaches us something.

It's called the thin end of the wedge. I do understand it's incredibly difficult if you don't have a garden, but if a couple of people sunbathe, before you know where you are there will be dozens of people doing the same. Eventually it becomes a crowd (think of a busy beach). How can you prevent spread in those cases? If you start bending the rules (and they are specific) you end up with increasing the number of infections.

@Summerofloaf if you read the act it is subjective. It's deliberately drafted that way so that one size doesn't fit all. For example one person driving 10 miles to go somewhere may be reasonable, for another person not so.

It's deliberately drafted that way so that one size doesn't fit all

Yet nowhere does it state or even imply that sunbathing is OK and still people are trying to argue the toss that it is

@Bearbehind it doesn't really work like that! It states 6.—(1)During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse. It then lists reasonable excuses. So if on the way to and from the shop you choose to sit in a park and rest taking in the rays, I cannot envision how a fine could be justified under the legislation as drafted. It isn't arguing semantics, it is a poorly drafted piece of legislation, like all legislation drafted and passed in haste. The legal appeals that will follow will be interesting. As I said earlier, common sense needs to be applied both by those enforcing and those subject to the legislation. We all know what to do to maintain our own health and other peoples, but the police stopping people from sitting in a park providing they are 2 metres apart from everyone else is not really a good use of their time whether they are on the way to or from the shops. I guess intention is key here.

jonb, I CBA with arguing the toss with people like you over this - suffice to say the term ‘covidiots’ exists for a reason and the 90% or so of us that are actually doing our best to comply are more than a little disgusted by those who are making it their business to find the loop holes, push the boundaries, and, in the case of sunbathing, totally take the piss

but my nerves are in shreds due to not sleeping well.

So I stay in the house

I don't know what your specific reasons are for poor sleep (it can of course be caused by all sorts of things), but most people sleep better if they get some direct daylight during the day.

if you read the act it is subjective. It's deliberately drafted that way so that one size doesn't fit all. For example one person driving 10 miles to go somewhere may be reasonable, for another person not so.

Jon I didn’t say anything about driving. Yes it might be reasonable if there are less people... to shop, exercise or walk dog (or provide essential care).

But not to sunbathe or sit around. So no it isn’t reasonable to drive anywhere to do that at the moment. Sunbathing clearly isn’t a permitted reason for leaving home, driving to do it or not.

That was me testing a name change btw.

100 people in a small playground? Close it down. A dozen locals on the beach? Leave them alone.

I agree, we need to use common sense.

And who on earth do you think is going to be monitoring that?

Round our way, the police are. My dad walked to the beach yesterday. He said there was no one else there apart from a police woman so he asked if he was ok to sit on a bench and eat his apple and she replied, of course it is, there's no one here!
Common sense.

What happens when there’s hundreds of people on the local beach?

The police disperse them.

I'm really hating how easily people turn on each other. On our local Facebook page the other day, a bloke suggested placing land mines in the skate park because a couple of kids were in there. Yeah, I know he (probably) wasn't serious, but o top of the rest of the vitriol spewing posts it was just horrible.

It is pointless arguing with a Goady Fucker

My point is the law does not support half of the stuff on here you are saying is unlawful/illegal. If you read it you would have some idea . . .

jonb I’m not sure anyone has said sunbathing is ‘illegal’ or ‘unlawful’

Only that it is fucking selfish and unnecessary

But you crack on with thinking it’s big and clever to focus on the semantics

It's more an issue of clarity and civil liberties. If the law is clear everyone knows what they have to do. That is entirely fair and justiciable. What has happened here is that the law is clear but some politicians have muddied the water by quoting sometimes, a load of bunkum. That is not fair to anyone, least of all people who may receive fines for behaving in an entirely legal way under the law as drafted.

You are being very unreasonable. You should only leave your house for essential reasons and sunbathing is definitely not essential.

I haven't mentioned sunbathing other than to say yoga in the sun would cover it 🙄

In the event of a global emergency like this which is a life and death situation, then doing whatever has to be done to keep the population alive overrides any concerns with ‘civil liberties’.

Civil liberties are not the priority now.

frankie you’ve neither answered my point about the very expensive properties in built up areas that don’t have outdoor space

These “very expensive” properties owned by the super rich tend to be much larger than your average council flat for a start. Self isolating in a luxury, air conditioned 3,000 square foot apartment in Mayfair is quite different to being stuck in a hot noisy rabbit hutch flat on an A-road. I’d have thought that would be obvious?

Apparently the cops are out stopping people doing yoga as well.

twitter.com/Bexmo/status/1248588173447442432

They are absolutely loving it.

6.—(1)During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse. It then lists reasonable excuses. So if on the way to and from the shop you choose to sit in a park and rest taking in the rays, I cannot envision how a fine could be justified under the legislation as drafted

I can. One of the fundamental rules of statutory interpretation is the "sui genesis" rule. That means that where a statute gives a list of examples which is not intended to be comprehensive, then you have to assume that anything else intended to be within that category is of the same type. If, say, a statute refers to "dogs, cats and other domestic animals" you assume that something like tigers won't come within that category.

The Coronavirus regulations set out a non-exclusive list of reasons for going out which are deemed to have reasonable excuses. They are all in a category of things deemed necessary because there is greater public value in allowing them than not, but it is all set within the context of doing whatever is possible to limit the spread of infection. Things like shopping for essential items are allowed for obvious reasons, exercising is allowed because of the benefits to health which it gives.

There are no essential benefits to health to be derived from sunbathing, given that you can get more than enough vitamin D from sitting in the sun, so stopping for an hour's sit-down on your way to work can't come within the list of statutory exceptions.

@JudyCoolibar from what you have written would that make it okay for me to go to my allotment twice a day? For context the allotment is large and would fall into the category of feeding the family through the summer. This time of year we are doing a lot of preparatory work: digging, rotovating, sowing and planting. If this work isn't done now we won't have much to harvest in the summer.

I am not wanting to find a loophole more to clarify what would or would not be a reasonable interpretation of the law.

I visited the gardens of a palace in Stockholm yesterday. A lovely sunny day, lots of family’s having picnics and playing ball games. Probably mixing of some households but given the small children still go to pre-school the added risk would be very small.
The Swedish approach has its issues and some risk, but it absolutely accepts the virus will be around for some months, and is not solved by a few weeks of lock down.