St. Joe-Benton Harbor News

The owner of a private campground in Michigan, who testified on June 2 to the Michigan Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic about how businesses were affected by the coronavirus, said he didn’t defy the law in opening his business during the state’s stay-home orders.

Mark Lemoine, who is managing partner and owner of Fifth Level Hospitality, Inc., doing business as the Coloma/St. Joseph, Michigan, KOA Holiday campground, told the committee his interpretation of the orders caused him to open the campground, but that similar business owners didn’t feel as free to do as he did, according to a video of the testimony.

Lemoine’s campground has 130 sites on 40 acres and has a staff of 17, Lemoine said in the video. 

“Personally, my campground, we have never been closed,” said Lemoine in the video, adding that he stayed open to accommodate northbound travelers such as Canadians going across the border before it closed and snowbirds exiting southern locales. “This was early- to mid-March when pretty much zero campgrounds are open in the state of Michigan, so I immediately opened up 16 of my pull-through lots just to be available for those travelers, and between the middle of March and the middle of April, when I normally would be closed, we had about 30 individuals who were in exactly that boat.”

Lemoine said in the video he believed many of his counterparts acted more out of fear in keeping their businesses closed. Lemoine’s  24-year career in government affairs serving as a staff member in the Michigan Senate and a professional advocate helped him interpret Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s shutdown orders in ways that meant he could operate his business, he said in the video.

“It made it quite uncomfortable because any presence or any activity in my park made it look like I was openly defying the governor, which, of course, I wasn’t nor wanted to be perceived as being,” Lemoine said in the video.

State Sen. Kim LaSata (R-Bainbridge Township), a  part of the Michigan Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, welcomed other businesses and residents in Southwest Michigan to relate their experiences during the coronavirus pandemic, according to LaSata's website.

Experiences may be shared at www.micovidstory.com, she said on her website.

“The biggest restriction experienced in our industry wasn’t even in the orders itself, but it was in the FAQ documents, which prohibited recreational camping for non-COVID-related purposes,” Lemoine said in the video.“This created a burden that appeared to require RV parks and campground businesses to discriminate amongst its guests and impose an expectation that we be the judge to validate a guest’s purpose for leaving their home and coming to us.”