How Virginia police will address stay-at-home violations

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued an executive order Monday that Virginians should stay at home through June 10, but it contained a wide variety of exceptions, such as permitting residents to travel to and from work, to buy food or medicine or to visit family. Here’s what you need to know about the order and how local and state police will enforce it.

Northam’s order made it illegal to:

• attend or host a public or private in-person, indoor or outdoor gathering of more than 10 people – with the exception of the operation of businesses not required to close under the order and the gathering of family members living in the same residence;

• operate or attend dining or congregation areas in restaurants, dining establishments, food courts, breweries, microbreweries, distilleries, wineries, tasting rooms and farmers markets;

• have more than 10 people in any brick-and-mortar retail business that was not specifically excluded in the order;

• operate or attend a recreational or entertainment businesses;

• stay at a privately-owned campground in the state for fewer than 14 nights;

• hold or attend in-person classes at any institution of higher learning;

• visit a public beach to do anything other than fish or exercise.

Following Northam’s instructions, state and local police will initially address violations of any of those restrictions by informing and warning violators about them. Persistent violation of the directives, however, could result in a person or persons being charged with a class one misdemeanor, which carries up to a year in jail and $2,500 fine.

Police still must have a reasonable suspicion in order to stop a vehicle on Virginia’s roads, and drivers do not need to be carrying documentation to show where they are going or that they are permitted to be on the roads under Northam’s order, according to Virginia State Police officials.

Police also will not be making random traffic stops nor conducting checkpoints to determine whether drivers are traveling for permissible reasons, police said.

Northam’s order also:

• does not close Virginia’s roads/interstates to Virginia residents;

• does not restrict non-Virginia residents from traveling into and/or through Virginia;

• does not prevent Virginians from traveling out of the state, though state police officials are encouraging any Virginian traveling out of state to check, in advance, the other state(s) for any travel restrictions that may be in place there. Northam has advised Virginians returning from out-of-state and/or international travel to self-quarantine for at least 14 days.

For details about the stay-at-home order, visit www.virginia.gov/coronavirus/faq.