DECISION AND ORDER I. INTRODUCTION When faced with a society-threatening epidemic, state officials are empowered to implement emergency protective measures that infringe federal constitutional rights. They may generally do so at their sole discretion and for so long as is necessary. And as long as the emergency measures bear some real or substantial relation to the threatening epidemic and are not unquestionably a plain invasion of rights, the efficacy and wisdom of those measures are not subject to judicial second-guessing. The State of New York faces a society-threatening epidemic in COVID-19. Beginning in March 2020, with his declaration of a disaster emergency throughout the state, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has issued a series of emergency protective measures in the form of Executive Orders aimed at combatting COVID-19 and the public-health crisis it has created. Those measures have included imposing quarantines, mandating workforce reductions, closing schools, requiring face-coverings, and restricting activities of all types. The plaintiffs here — six event and banquet centers that host large gatherings — challenge and seek to enjoin Defendants from continuing to enforce one of those emergency measures: Executive Order 202.45 and its progeny, which imposes a temporary 50-person limit on non-essential gatherings. Fiscally reeling from this ban that has effectively shut them down since March 2020, Plaintiffs understandably seek this Court’s intervention in a bid to save their struggling businesses and avoid insolvency. But as explained herein, this Court is constrained by decades-old Supreme Court precedent that requires great deference to the State’s police power in times of crisis. Because the issuance of Executive Order 202.45 properly falls within this power, Plaintiffs’ pending motion for preliminary injunction will be denied, Defendants’ cross-motions to dismiss will be granted, and Plaintiffs’ will be afforded leave to file an amended complaint. II. BACKGROUND The six plaintiffs are event, banquet, and catering facilities that serve as private venues for weddings, religious services and celebrations, bridal and baby showers, family reunions, political events, and other large gatherings. (Complaint, Docket No. 1,
3-8, 20.) They are each “non-essential” businesses under the Governor’s Executive Orders and are subject to the 50-person limitation on “non-essential” gatherings, which they allege has left them on the verge of insolvency. (Id.
