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April 15, 2020

Masks to be mandatory in city stores

PHOTO | Pixabay.com
By Michael C. Bingham

Beginning Friday, both retail-store workers and shoppers will be required to wear face masks inside New Haven stores. 

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker on Wednesday announced an executive order mandating the wearing of masks in all city stores during his daily media briefing.

“Today I am about to sign an order requiring [employers in] retail businesses to provide employees with and require them to wear [face] masks,” Elicker said. “And I’m also requiring customers going into such establishments to wear masks.” The order takes effect this Friday (April 17). 

“We’ve spent a lot of time and doing outreach encouraging people to wear masks,” the mayor said. “And while a lot of people are, what’s important is that everyone does so — especially in environments where people are in close quarters” with one another, he added.

Elicker said city health officials had fielded a number of complaints from retail workers who felt unsafe working cheek-by-jowl with customers not wearing protective clothing to help slow the transmission of the coronavirus.

Stores included under the new executive order include grocery stores, big-box stores, wholesale clubs, pharmacies, gas stations, convenience stores and the like.

Elicker said other municipal chief executives such as Hamden Mayor Curt Leng and Bridgeport Mayor Joseph P. Ganim were actively mulling similar new restrictions for their communities.

“We’ve been receiving a number of complaints — people feel unsafe when they’re in close proximity to others not wearing masks,” said city Public Health Director Maritza Bond.

Elicker said that the masks needn’t be commercial grade to pass muster, and indeed he discouraged the use of medical-grade masks for casual shopping, saying devices such as surgical and N95 masks would best be reserved for health-care workers.

Elicker said city health officials would most likely respond to complaints by retail workers and/or consumers by informing non-mask-wearers about the new rule. He said he hoped issuing citations to violators would not become necessary.

“Cloth masks or other fabric coverings such as scarves or bandanas” would do the trick, he said. “Masks are easy to create and they cost virtually no money. So it’s a pretty low ask for individuals.”

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