O’Scanlon Slams Law Establishing COVID Sanitization Guidelines for Hotels as “Nonsensical Insanity”

Following the proposed implementation of a 2020 law that would establish sanitization guidelines for hotels in New Jersey, forcing them to do things such as change sheets in hotel rooms every day, Senator Declan O’Scanlon called the measure an overreaction to COVID and the clearest example yet of democrats’ proclivity for micromanagement.

“This law is a ridiculous overreaction to COVID. It is in fact counter-productive, more regularly exposing more people to more people—both workers and residents. Throw in that it’s a bizarre, blatant example of government overreach that will needlessly increase costs while negatively impacting the environment and you get a hat-trick of incompetent, nonsensical insanity! Oh, and those increased costs? They’ll be passed on to YOU dear weary and beleaguered consumers! This cost will come at a time when people are still hurting financially because of other absurd pandemic policies pushed by the democrats in Trenton—combined with record-high levels of inflation caused by democrats in Washington,” said O’Scanlon (R-13). “Democrats in general seem to have a habit of advancing legislation designed to micromanage people’s lives. This law is the latest example of that.”

The legislation, S2479/A4131, requires the Department of Health to establish COVID sanitization guidelines for hotels operating in the state. Among the numerous protocols required by the law, perhaps the most egregious is requiring hotels to clean and sanitize each guest room every day and make sure that towels, sheets, and pillowcases are changed every day.

“Here’s a newsflash for you…no one is catching covid from their own, used pillow-cases or sheets!! Sanitizing a room during your own, continued use of it…is going to accomplish what exactly?!? Prevent you from catching covid…from yourself!?! No one in the real world changes their sheets every single day. If hotels, particularly large ones with more than 1,000 rooms, are required to do this, they will need to dramatically increase the size of their cleaning staff. Assuming the hotel management can find the additional workers during this historic worker shortage, the financial cost of the new hires will be passed on to the hotel guests, who will have to pay even more per night for a room,” added O’Scanlon. “And, what about the environmental impact? The countless gallons of water that will be needed to wash millions of sheets, pillow cases, etc. across the state every day, combined with the electricity and gas needed to dry them. It’s funny how democrats, and these so-called progressives who lecture the rest of us about a ‘Green New Deal,’ seem to ignore those inconvenient truths when it suits their interests.”

By its nature, S2479 will require hotel cleaning staff to enter a guest’s room every day, thereby forcing people, both workers and guests, to be in proximity to each other—which will actually INCREASE potential exposure to COVID.

“Is it really too much to ask that, the folks responsible for implementing insanity like this actually think for a moment and say to themselves ‘wow, this is really f@#%ing stupid! Rather then implement it let’s ask the legislature to undo it!’ Alas, such moments of clarity are a very rare occurrence in Trenton. For the past two years, democrats have enacted COVID policies that have destroyed or severely hurt businesses across this state, particularly small businesses,” O’Scanlon continued. “Unfortunately, it appears that they have learned nothing from their mistakes and will continue to enact bizarre, over-reaching legislation that is actually counter-productive. Every time I think they can’t possibly continue to astound me, they figure out a way. Gotta give credit for that.”

O’Scanlon is introducing legislation to undo the policies.