The New York State mask mandate isn’t going very well. More than a dozen counties are refusing to enforce it, and Gov. Kathy Hochul isn’t going to force them to. So if you live in or are near one of these non-compliant counties, you’re pretty much good to go. On Monday, I tested this out personally by shopping in two stores in a county that is not enforcing the mandate. I had no problems.
I had to run a couple of errands on Tuesday, and things were a bit different.
As I walked into the national chain store I’d been to yesterday, there was a woman inside with a box of masks. I expected her to ask me to mask up per the mandate, but, surprisingly, she just smiled, and I walked on. I otherwise shopped without incident, but at one point, an elderly customer flagged me down and asked me how I got in. At first, I thought he would complain that I was maskless, but as it turned out, he told me he wasn’t allowed in without putting his mask on. It seems that he came in a different entrance than I had, and the person there was being a stickler per the mandate that isn’t even being enforced in the county.
Related: I Went Shopping Maskless in New York Despite The Mandate… Here’s What Happened
He remarked that the whole mandate is “a bunch of baloney.”
I made one other stop before going home, this time to a pharmacy. I had a feeling my experience there would be different. Sure enough, within seconds of walking in, I was asked if I had a mask. I said I didn’t, and then I was asked if I wanted one. I said, “no thank you” and went about my business. I had a suspicion that the two people up front were mumbling behind my back as I browsed the aisles, but I didn’t care.
The same woman who asked me if I wanted a mask was at the register when I was done. She promptly informed me that it’s a New York state mandate to wear masks. I then explained that the mandate isn’t being enforced in the county. She tried to tell me that it actually was. I explained that she was wrong and that the county executive specifically said that they wouldn’t be enforcing the mandate. She didn’t argue further but simply stated that we must be “checking two different places,” and then dropped it and rang up my items.
While the mandate itself isn’t being enforced, businesses apparently still feel like they need to offer masks and instruct people to wear them, though, so far, I haven’t been told to wear one or leave. I expect it’s bound to happen eventually, so I plan to bring along documentation showing that the mandate is not being enforced in the county. If they still expect me to wear the mask, I will take my business elsewhere.
