Mayor Orders Face-Coverings To Be Worn In Essential Businesses

HAMDEN, CT — Beginning Friday night, local residents who visit essential retail businesses will be required to wear face coverings as a way of protecting themselves and others from the spread of the new coronavirus, Mayor Curt Balzano Leng has ordered. The order, which was announced Thursday, goes into effect at 5 p.m. Friday and requires people using grocery stores, big box stores, and other establishments that sell food and beverages, convenience stores, liquor stores and other businesses to cover their faces. The order also allows business proprietors to refuse entry to anyone not wearing a face-covering.

Additionally, all employers in Hamden must also now provide employees with face-coverings, which must be worn at all times while the employees are working, the order states. While Gov. Ned Lamont’s “Safe Stores” order already requires some employees to wear face-coverings, this order extends to every retail environment. The order stipulates that face-coverings are not required to be medical grade masks or N95 respirators but should be cloth masks or face-coverings made of other fabrics. Employees wearing these masks should wash face-coverings at least once a day and single-use face-coverings should be disposed of properly.

“Facial coverings do not make people safe from exposure to the coronavirus. Residents should not in any way consider this order as a tool to go out more often at a time when shelter in place is the very best way to slow and eventually end the spread of this virus,” Leng wrote in the release announcing the emergency order, the sixth he has issued in relation to the coronavirus pandemic. “Instead, it’s an added tool to keep people safe when they have an essential need and must go out and into a setting with other people where social distancing isn’t guaranteed.”

Quinnipiac Valley Health District also supports the recommendation of wearing cloth face-coverings when in public in conjunction with the Center For Disease Control in environments where social distancing methods and guidelines are difficult to adhere to, such as grocery stories and pharmacies.

“This is not our normal behavior, but for the sake of public health and safety ...to save lives, it is not too much to ask,” Leng wrote. “We all have a friend or loved one who is in a high-risk category or is immunocompromised. Let’s make the smart decisions together as a community and take the precautions needed to protect those close to us, as well as our friends and neighbors.”

He added: “One day, we will get past these strange and dark times. But for now, we’ve got to be mindful - and frankly, we all have to care enough and give a damn to make a difference.”