Donald Trump Jr has weighed in on Saturday Night Live continuing to film in front of a live studio audience, despite New York governor Andrew Cuomo's warnings that renewed restaurant restrictions could be on the way due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Should these heightened restrictions return to the state, SNL would be able to stay operational due to the fact that they pay audience members $150 for their participation, which essentially makes them paid individuals who "work" for the show.
"Because bad ‘comedy’ is essential but you being able to feed you families and keep your small businesses’ doors open is not," the president’s eldest son, who tested positive for coronavirus in November, wrote on Twitter.
Yesterday (7 December), Cuomo posted a warning to Twitter, writing:
"NEW: If after 5 days a region's hospital rate has not stabilized, indoor dining will close or be reduced.
-In NYC, indoor dining would close entirely.
-In rest of the state, indoor dining would be reduced to 25% capacity."
As a reminder, New York State Department of Health Covid guidelines say that shows with live audiences "must prohibit live audiences unless they consist only of paid employees, cast, and crew". A live audience can be "no more than 100 individuals or 25 percent of the audience capacity, whichever is lower".
Back in October, The New York Times spoke to an SNL audience member about their experience watching the show as a paid audience member.
“We had no idea we would be paid before we were handed checks,” Sean Ludwig, who tweeted about the payment on 4 October, said. ”We were all very pleasantly surprised".
“There is no evidence of noncompliance [with Covid guidelines],” Jonah Bruno, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health, told the Times, adding that “if any is discovered, we will refer that to local authorities for follow-up.”
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