Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Friday that Los Angeles is captive to Mayor Eric Garcetti, who he said is “a neurotic megalomaniac” determined to keep the city under a coronavirus lockdown until further notice.

“America’s second largest city has fallen under the total control of a neurotic megalomaniac who is terrified of dry sand. His personal phobias are now law in Los Angeles,” Carlson said.

“Makes you think of the final days of [Communist dictator] Nicolas Ceausescu in Romania, ranting at his subjects from the podium, imposing his strange obsessions on the helpless population,” Carlson said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” noting that Garcetti is “a compulsive hand washer with a very strange personal life.” (RELATED: Judge Napolitano Tells Gov. Whitmer: ‘Don’t Treat Us As Though We Are Children’)

Carlson noted that Garcetti has mused about not allowing LA to emerge from its lockdown until a cure for the coronavirus has been discovered. He has also threatened to shut down the power to any “non-essential’ business that remains open and refuses to obey the city lockdown. The city has also distributed pre-paid debit cards to illegal immigrants.

“The citizens who remain stuck in Los Angeles are effectively hostages of the mayor,” the Fox News host said, noting that Garcetti is demanding that everyone wear face masks outside and if they go to the beach, to only walk or run on the “wet sand” and not to suntan on the “dry sand.”

“What is the science behind this? Once again, there is none,” Carlson insisted, saying the dictates are all about the mayor’s fondness for power. (RELATED: Judge Napolitano: Coronavirus Is Leading To ‘Slow Death Of Civil Liberties’)

“This can’t go on; it’s too crazy,” Carlson said, but indicated that a coalition of citizens wants the mayor out. “A couple of days ago, a group of them came together. It’s totally bipartisan … The one thing they all have in common is the dead certain knowledge that Mayor Eric Garcetti is poison: he’s hurting their city, he’s hurting their families.”

The citizens are also fed up with the sidewalks being taken over by homeless people, Carlson noted.

“This group of citizens is going to try and bounce Eric Garcetti from the mayor’s office, and they can,” under California’s recall law that requires a sufficient number of signatures, Carlson noted. But “thanks to Garcetti’s extended shelter-in-place orders, citizens are not allowed to gather these signatures.”

Carlson cites this as another reason why lockdowns are endangering democracy in America because “under the guise of public health, he has stopped his political opponents from opposing him … As long as there is no vaccine for the Wuhan coronavirus, they can remain in power unchallenged.”