A group is holding a rally Monday afternoon protesting the governor's executive orders requiring non-essential businesses to close during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Libertarian Party of Connecticut has been promoting the rally on social media.
In a video posted on its Facebook page, a spokesperson said the event will be a rolling rally and he asks that people remain in their vehicles.
Participants gathered at 4 p.m. near the Bushnell Theater and the rally itself began around 5 p.m. with the vehicles then driving around the State Capitol for nearly an hour.
The group then moved the rolling rally to the governor's residence from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
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Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin reacted to the plans for the rally at a press briefing Monday:
"These folks plan to stay in their cars – I appreciate that, they have the right to express their views, I’m glad, at least I hope they will observe social distancing as they do that and stay in their cars. My general comment on that is, on that rally is this, look we all wish life could return to normal. I’m sure all of us are sick of staying at home or living with this disruption or wearing masks as we go around, but you can't just deny reality, you can't deny the facts. This is a region, the Greater Hartford region, that last week saw a doubling of the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus and this is a city, a small city where as of today we have had 55 lives lost associated with the coronavirus. We cannot deny that reality and we don’t speed up the return to normalcy by pretending we are there prematurely. So I would urge all of those we are anxious to get back to normal to help us get back to normal by doing what needs to be done to keep the community healthy and slow the spread of the coronavirus. That’s going to be a lot more productive than bringing hundreds of people together in one place whether it's in their cars or out of their cars.”
