I ate a salad. It could be the most expensive salad of my life because authorities are sticking to long-outdated corona rules.
In March 2021 I sat on the banks of the Rhine in Cologne and ate a salad I had brought with me. Suddenly, employees of the public order office took me by surprise. I’m sitting in a zone where masks are compulsory, they admonished me with a big chest. That’s a 50 euro fine, one of the officers said to me.
The fine came after almost two years as a registered letter.
“I’m still eating,” I protested, pointing at the half-full salad box in my lap. They countered: “We watched you for five minutes. You didn’t put your fork to your mouth during this time!” I could pay the 50 euros now or I would have a fine sent home. Totally perplexed, I chose the latter. The decision would then come in the next six to eight weeks by mail, the officials said in parting.
He didn’t come, I forgot about the incident. Months later I moved to Berlin. There, 724 days later, I still got mail from the office: 50 euros, plus 28.50 euros overdue fine – makes 78.50 euros!
The Rhine Steps in Cologne. This is where the fine was imposed
I asked the city of Cologne. After all, the Corona requirements outdoors have turned out to be completely excessive in the meantime. Even our Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, the number one advocate of the Corona rule, recently questioned the proportionality of some of the requirements. At the beginning of the year, he said in an interview: “Current bans, wearing masks in the open air, sealing off children’s playgrounds outside and the like – these were things that would no longer be done today.”
Thousands of fine notices sent
And yet the city of Cologne issued 2,102 corona fines in January and February of this year alone. Since the beginning of the corona crisis in 2020, there have been a total of 13,311.
Violations of the Coronavirus Protection Ordinance can still be prosecuted for up to two years later.
Number of fines due to violations of the CoronaSchoVO in Cologne
| Fine notices issued in 2020 | 2.565 |
| Fine notices issued in 2021 | 4.362 |
| Fine notices issued in 2022 | 4.282 |
| Fine notices issued in 2023 (until 02/23) | 2.102 |
| Total number of fines issued | 13.311 |
Source: City of Cologne
The office also remains firm in relation to my case: “Regardless of whether existing corona regulations were subsequently assessed as inappropriate or not expedient, these were valid and lawfully enacted legal provisions that had to be observed by everyone. In the matter (…) a corresponding punishment is being adhered to.”
Plain text: You know that it was nonsense. I should still pay.
