Maryland County-Level Face Mask Requirements in Effect
Dear WANADA Members,
Over the past few days, government leaders and health officials in
Montgomery,
Prince George's,
Charles, and
Anne Arundel counties in Maryland have issued face mask mandates with varying levels of requirements and enforcement.
These executive orders require employees in essential businesses to provide their employees with face coverings and, as has been the norm throughout this crisis, to adhere to state and federal social distancing guidelines.
As we noted last week, Gov. Larry Hogan issued an
executive order empowering county health authorities to set their own safety directives, and to conduct enforcement efforts alongside the state.
County health authorities and sheriff's departments have the power, as of last week, to shutter businesses who are not in compliance with these local ordinances. None of our members have been shut down, but we are confident that active local enforcement is ongoing and will continue to be for the duration of this emergency.
These orders also require patrons at grocery stores and other public businesses, plus transit users, to wear cloth face coverings while in those establishments. They also give businesses the authority to deny entry to patrons who are not in compliance, though the counties listed currently have slightly different enforcement requirements.
Anne Arundel County's order, in particular, serves as a model for what we believe more jurisdictions could require in the near future. The county Department of Health has the power to levy fines of up to $500 for businesses that fail to comply with their enhanced requirements which, beyond the mask requirement, include an order that retail businesses limit their capacity to no more than 50 percent of their normal patron maximum.
Montgomery County's order also imposes potential $500 fines for businesses in violation, and $750 fines for repeat offenders of either their latest executive order or previous
state safety mandates. Their order, unlike Anne Arundel's, does not impose a strict customer capacity reduction, but does require businesses to "establish and enforce" patron reduction protocols.
For weeks now we have been encouraging our members in both Maryland and Virginia to go above and beyond the state and local mandates published to date, to ensure that they are making their workplaces as safe as possible for their employees and customers.
We are heartened by the dealers who have taken initiative to conduct appointment-only sales and service work, and we once again encourage our members to make themselves familiar with these requirements and to vigorously document their compliance efforts.
In general, if your workplace has been providing workers with face masks and hand-washing products, while following the standing guidance around social distancing, then compliance should be relatively simple. This is true whether your business is located in Maryland or Virginia. As we have long stressed, the governors of both states have given us a real privilege to be able to continue providing essential auto services during this time, and that privilege can be taken away at any time if we are not diligent about keeping our workplaces safe and compliant.
Please feel free to contact me or Joe Koch (
jk@wanada.org) if you have any questions. Thank you for your commitment to safety as you continue providing important services during this difficult time.
