South West Illinois News

Belleville Mayor Mark Eckert shut down indoor dining in the city, but then sidestepped his own guidelines and went out of state to dine in a restaurant.

Eckert said he wasn’t intentionally trying to avert his own rules.

"Had there been a long wait for a table, we might have ordered something to go, but they had a table for us in 5 minutes, and we felt comfortable with a table against a wall,” Eckert said in a Facebook post. “We wore our masks when we weren’t seated.”

Eckert said he and his wife had gone to look at Christmas lights and went to St. Louis to look at their displays as well when they decided to get dinner on the way back. 

“This was not a plan to sidestep the guidelines set by the State of Illinois,” Eckert said in a Facebook post. “This was not meant to be anything other than a date night with my wife.”

Eckert pointed out that the mandates weren’t his, they were Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s.

“In recent days, the city of Belleville has issued 3 warning letters to businesses where we received calls about businesses who have not eliminated indoor dining,” Eckert wrote. “This is not my mandate, but I am required to uphold restrictions set forth by the State of Illinois. The State has taken guidelines from health experts to establish restrictions that they believe will help reduce the spread of the virus.”

Eckert said he realized that because of his position, optics are important and that he shouldn’t have eaten in the restaurant.

“Again, I apologize for this mistake,” he wrote in the post. “Especially to those in the service industry who are struggling at this time and the health care workers who are dealing with this crisis.”

A Facebook user, Dave Calvert, shared the news about Eckert eating at the St. Louis restaurant when it occurred.

“Our mayor can’t eat in his own town cause he’s shutting it all down,” Calvert wrote, attaching a photo of Eckert at the restaurant. “So he comes over to STL to eat.”