The Town of Mammoth Lakes isn’t taking any chances with its position on the moderate tier of California’s revised COVID-19 classification system. The Town’s goal is to drop to the minimal tier with a broad range of business openings.
At last week’s Town Council meeting, council members voted unanimously to adopt an urgency ordinance prohibiting violations of public health orders and allow “town staff to issue infraction citations or administrative fines for violations.”
The ordinance applies to the range of issues addressed in the Health Order. Town Attorney Andy Morris stressed it isn’t specifically a mask ordinance. But, it does come with a potential $1,000 fine.
Council discussion and staff report softened the blow of that fine, stressing that “enforcement will continue to be focused on education and voluntary compliance first.” Businesses have been trained on how to ask patrons to wear masks. Working with the Mammoth Lakes Chamber of Commerce, the Emergency Operations Committee has provided masks for businesses to give to customers. Basically, there’s no excuse.
“The issuance of a citation would be a last step in response to someone who directly refuses to use a face covering in a public space and is not willing to observe physical distancing from others,” the staff report states.
To drop to minimal, Mono County “must remain in a tier for at least three weeks before moving forward. To move forward, a county must meet the next tier’s criteria for two consecutive weeks.” The minimal tier’s criteria for new cases is fewer than one a day and less than a two-percent positive test rate.
To get a look at Mono County’s public health order go to: https://webapps.mono.ca.gov/coviddocs/Directives/Revised%20face%20covering%20order%20June%2029.pdf
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Sounds like False Teeth @ best.
Grow some b*lls and enforce the mask if you expect to get numbers down and open this winter! Typical Mammoth council mentality. Anything for money. This town has been overrun all summer and the locals have had enough. This town gets worse and worse every year. Thank you for over exploiting a great place. Losers.
WOW ! Talk about a country divided !
If the false positive rate for the Covid 19 DNA swab test is up to 5%, how will anyone ever test before 2% ?
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
― Ayn Rand
It seems that you have confused inconvenience with oppression.
“…. it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws”
That, and the rest of the false equivalency spin from Rand is ludicrous. Until there’s a vaccine and treatments widely available it’s not any sort of oppression, any violation of basic civil rights by any means whatsoever.
When the POTUS is now shown to have lied and misled the nation about the severity of this virus, that might very well be considered violating the entire country’s right to know the truth, and far worse. But putting teeth into enforcement is about public health and safety more than anything, and it’s coherent in every regard.
An ongoing very serious global pandemic, we’re up to over one thousand people dying at day, again. This is about public health and safety, not dystopian rhetoric from Ayn Rand.
How does the quote from the article below equate with… “There is no way to rule innocent men.”?
“The issuance of a citation would be a last step in response to someone who directly refuses to use a face covering in a public space and is not willing to observe physical distancing from others,” the staff report states.”
No doubt the health department will need to be expanded.
Is the surge in coronavirus cases we experienced in July still tied to restaurants in Mammoth Lakes (LA Times article) or was that innacurate?
If not maybe town staff could be cross trained into health department roles inspecting restaurants and restaurant workers until the health department is expanded.
We support you Mammoth!