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reHis pack of cigarettes could be the most expensive of his life for a Bavarian couple. Both must pay a total of 1000 euros together; notice, not the package itself, but the overnight trip to the cigarette machine. For this reason alone, the couple explained, they would have left home again.
In the Free State, there has been a nightly curfew between 9 pm and 5 am since last week. Anyone moving abroad must have a valid reason for it. According to local authorities, giving in to nicotine addiction is not one of them. And so, the policemen passing by imposed a fine on the couple.
Anyone who violates Corona’s requirements should expect hefty fines; This also applies to Christmas. Many federal states have loosened restrictions on vacation time somewhat. In many places, private meetings with more than five people are allowed on short notice. In some cases, infractions of the rules are severely penalized.
Each federal state regulates what fines are imminent for each offense. Anyone participating in a private party in which the allowed number of people is exceeded generally has to expect a standard rate in the triple-digit cost range. In Rhineland-Palatinate it is 100 euros. In Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Saxony and Baden-Württemberg the offense usually costs 150 euros, in Bavaria the authorities usually impose a fine of 250 euros.
Hosts are usually more affected than participants. In Baden-Wuerttemberg, the party you invite usually has to count for 600 and a maximum of 1000 euros. In Berlin, this costs between 500 and 1000 euros. Individual state police have made it clear that you should not stand at apartment windows during the Christmas holidays to check the number of people at the kitchen table. However, they want to keep track of the tracks, for example due to too loud a party.
Family Christmas visits to medical facilities can also cause problems in some places. For example, a person admitted to hospitals in Rhineland-Palatinate despite having obvious respiratory problems pays up to 250 euros. If visitors even had contact with someone infected with Covid, they would face a fine of 1,000 euros.
And even if the family visit is over, there is still the threat of fines on the way home at night, that is, where night curfews have been imposed. Because there are no exceptions to driving by car, as Bavarian police officers made clear in one case.
This year’s Christmas visits may also have consequences for those from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania who leave their state for it. The state government says that visiting family or friends is basically possible. However, anyone returning from a district with a seven-day incidence of more than 200 infections per 100,000 inhabitants must go into a ten-day quarantine.
On Tuesday, 155 of the total 412 districts in Germany exceeded this value. Only visits to the family nucleus are excluded. This includes spouses, registered partners, and life partners, as well as children, parents, grandparents, and siblings.
Fines for fireworks
And even on New Year’s Eve, great restraint is still applied. If you want to fire a rocket at the turn of the year, you face a costly bill in some places. When it comes to the question of what is allowed, citizens must fight their way through a patchwork quilt.
Some countries want to ban fireworks in public streets and squares, some municipalities have even banned private fireworks in the garden of the house. And in other regions, the courts have struck down the original bans. Therefore, each country sanctions violations differently.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, where the lighting of fireworks is prohibited in all streets and public squares, wants to impose fines of between 50 and 1000 euros. “The sanction options have been raised again to send a clear signal,” State Interior Minister Torsten Renz (CDU) said last week. In Hamburg, 150 euros are owed for an offense, in Rhineland-Palatinate even 500 euros. A national ban on the sale of fireworks to retail is already in place.
However, please note: The fines in the fines catalogs only reflect the standard fees. However, some countries want to show their mercy to some crown sinners. In Bavaria, the authorities can reduce the standard rate. According to the catalog of fines, this can be considered if the risk of infecting others was low, if someone was negligent or the perpetrator was understanding. Juveniles can also receive lower sentences.
On the contrary, the guilty party may also be more affected. In the case of tracking violations, the standard rates will be doubled, for example, in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. Berlin and Baden-Württemberg even provide a fine of up to 25,000 euros for repeat offenses.
Those who commit multiple crimes at the same time receive penalties for each individual crime in some federal states. So if a person doesn’t keep a sufficient distance from others when violating the night curfew, they will pay for both, and not just for the most serious offense.
Possible prison sentence for Garmisch’s super spreader
Nor do you have to stay with a fine. In theory, prison terms are even possible in this country. A 26-year-old from Garmisch-Partenkirchen has to fear that. Because she had symptoms of the disease in September, the young woman must go into quarantine after a corona test until the result is received. But the American-born didn’t stick to that, and they went pub crawling the next night, as the responsible district office explained at the time.
But then it turned out that: the 26-year-old had already been infected with the corona virus. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann called his behavior “particularly ruthless”, even Prime Minister Markus Söder (both CSU) spoke and spoke of a “model case in favor of irrationality”. The Munich public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation against the alleged over-broadcaster on suspicion of negligent bodily injury.
In practice, however, the authorities will find it difficult to provide evidence in such cases. After all, the source of a corona infection can rarely be verified beyond question. And to this day, the 26-year-old has not been shown to have infected other people.
