Violent crime is down in New York City, while robberies, carjackings, and property crimes have spiked, even surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Mayor Eric Adams thinks he has the answer: allow customers to briefly remove their masks before they enter a store so that store employees know they’re not there to rob the place.
After a few moments, the mask should be put back on.
“We are putting out a clear call to all of our shops: do not allow people to enter the store without taking off their face mask,” Adams said in an interview with radio station 1010 WINS. “Once they’re inside, they can continue to wear it if they so desire to do so.”
More clear evidence that the mask issue makes people absolutely insane.
Related: Jihadi Terrorist Who Murdered Eight People in NYC Finds a Way to Blame Trump
Requiring shoppers to lower their masks would give security cameras a view of their faces, Adams said. If they refused to comply, it would give store employees an idea of whom to monitor closely because “if someone is violating the basic rules, they may be there to violate a substantial rule as to commit a crime,” he said.
“That’s all we are trying to do — empower the store owners, the storekeepers, so they can play a role that we are going to do as police officers,” the mayor added.
NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey echoed Adams’s statements during a Monday news conference.
“As a sign of a peace offering, a sign of safety to those store workers, when we walk in, we should take down our mask,” Maddrey said, calling it “a commonsense approach.”
New York City health officials still “strongly recommend everyone to wear masks in all indoor public settings.” That’s very good and conscientious, but taking the mask off — even briefly — might prove to be problematic.
As discussed on today’s Three Martini Lunch, my feeling towards this is similar to my feeling during the time period when you were required to wear a mask in an airport under Federal Aviation Administration, but also simultaneously required to briefly remove your mask, so that the Transportation Security Administration officers could check your ID. I guess the plan is to just hope no one with Covid exhales or coughs during that brief period.
This might be the silliest, the stupidest, the most idiotic crime-stopping measure in history. The only way it will prevent crime is because the criminals are laughing so hard at the notion that masks are effective in protecting people from disease and that briefly taking them off will actually deter a criminal from robbing the place.
Otherwise, it’s back to square one in preventing robberies. Perhaps New York City should elect lawmakers who don’t make it ridiculously easy for criminals to avoid bail and roam the streets rather than engage in “Mask Theater” to try and fool people into thinking you’re doing something about the problem.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member