Columbia City Council extends face mask law until February as pandemic rolls on
Face masks will continue to be the law of the land in Columbia, at least for the next two months.
Columbia City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed an extension of its ordinance requiring citizens to wear masks in public places amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The extension is good for 60 days, taking the law into February.
The city first passed an ordinance requiring masks back in June, and has approved a number of extensions since then. It beefed up the ordinance in November, increasing the fine for individuals violating the law from $25 to $100.
“Face coverings which cover the nose and mouth shall be required in all public places within the city,” the extended mask ordinance reads. “All persons entering a commercial establishment in the city must wear a face covering while inside the establishment. A face covering must also be worn in situations where distances between people change frequently such as a busy sidewalk, waiting area, or popular outdoor area where it is impractical or impossible to maintain six feet of distance at all times.”
The ordinance also says that all “restaurants, bars, retail stores, barbershops, salons, grocery stores and pharmacies” in the city must require employees to wear masks over their noses and mouths.
Marshals with the Columbia Fire Department have written 203 mask tickets since June, Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins told The State on Tuesday. Of those, 130 tickets were written during a weekend blitz in mid-November.
The measure council passed Tuesday also has a secondary aspect. It continues the suspension of normal operating procedures for council and other city boards and commissions, which have been meeting virtually, rather than in-person at City Hall with an audience, for months.
There have been whispers among some council members about exploring options for ways to meet in-person, with safety precautions in place. However, Mayor Steve Benjamin has said it will likely be late spring or early summer 2021 before the council seriously considers meeting in-person again.
The coronavirus has continued to rip through South Carolina. On Tuesday, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control reported 2,303 new cases of COVID-19, marking the 11th day in the last 12 that daily cases topped 2,000. Since March, more than 239,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in South Carolina, and it has killed more than 4,400 people statewide.
Benjamin said Tuesday he was encouraged by the initial roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine in South Carolina. Vaccines were set to be administered Tuesday to some health care workers in the MUSC, Prisma Health and Lexington Medical Center systems.
However, the third-term mayor was quick to note various precautionary measures, such as masks, social distancing and frequent hand-washing, will be necessary in coming months as the vaccine slowly rolls out.
“I’m thankful for the efforts we are seeing in the private, public and philanthropic sectors with the vaccines, with emergency approval, and it’s literally being administered as we speak,” Benjamin said. “We would encourage people to wear their masks and physically distance, and to do their very best to prevent COVID fatigue. It’s wonderful to be able to see that there is truly an end in sight, but it is going to take an extraordinary effort in collective responsibility and mutual responsibility for us to get there.”
As vaccines begin to trickle out, at-large Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine inquired as to whether there will be efforts at the city level to reach out to the African American community to encourage people to get vaccinated. The virus has disproportionately impacted the Black community.
Devine asked Benjamin, the city’s first African American mayor, whether he might take the vaccine publicly, as a form of encouragement that the vaccine is safe.
The mayor said he expects some discussion with state epidemiologist Dr. Linda Bell and other officials on how leaders can model taking the vaccine.
“I will do what is asked as it relates to the vaccine,” Benjamin said. “Hopefully we will have a very formal role, at the request of the governor and this administration or maybe the next presidential administration, when asked to do our part in encouraging that the vaccine be taken by citizens.”
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 2:29 PM.
