LOS ANGELES — Since the closure of the Los Angeles County Clerk's Office two months ago, no one has been able to purchase a marriage license in the county.
Mike Sanchez, spokesman for the Clerk's Office, said the office does not have an estimate for when marriages would begin again in the county.
"I don’t have an updated timeline, so I can’t provide any new information right now, but it is something our recorder and county clerk side of the department are working on with our IT team," Sanchez said in an interview with The Southern California Record.
Sanchez said marriage licenses have not been available since March 16.
"So technically it’s correct that since we closed our office on the 16th of March that no one was able to purchase a marriage license, so with that said, that option was unavailable," Sanchez said. "No one was able to come in and purchase a license. But there were some couples that had come maybe the week or a few weeks before that happened, had their ceremony and then mailed their certificate back to the office, and we have received those and recorded them like we normally would."
Sanchez said she did not know when the office will reopen.
"If you already had purchased the license, then that couple may or may not have had their ceremony and that would solemnize the marriage," Sanchez said. "It’s something we’re working closely on the county with. We will likely release more information later this week, but right now I don’t have anything new."
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order allowing couples to legally marry via videoconferencing, but not all counties have the technology yet to comply, the Los Angeles Times reported. It could be June before the county gets a system in place.