After ‘numerous complaints,’ Nevada City approves $100 fine for failure to wear mask
Nevada City approved an ordinance Wednesday allowing police to enforce the state’s mask mandate with fines against individuals, becoming one of the first jurisdictions in Northern California’s foothills to do so.
The Nevada City Council voted unanimously to approve the urgency ordinance, which permits a fine of $100 for first-time violators. Repeat offenders face $150 for a second violation and $200 for a third.
The ordinance calls noncompliance to the face covering order a “public nuisance” and health risk. It notes the city “has received numerous complaints from City residents that the public is not heeding the Guidance” even as the COVID-19 case total in Nevada County is “rapidly rising.”
The Council discussed the ordinance in a Wednesday evening meeting via Zoom. In public comments sections of the meeting, more than a dozen residents expressed opposition to masks, including during unrelated agenda items.
“There are some people who are vehemently opposed to masks. And that’s their choice — and they don’t have to come downtown,” Councilman Doug Fleming said.
Nevada City, the seat of Nevada County, has just over 3,000 residents. Its picturesque downtown district is a popular spot for regional tourists. This time of year, its quaint streets usually bustle with Christmas celebrations.
“I want people to start feeling comfortable to be able to come to town, get their Christmas presents, support our businesses,” Mayor Erin Minett said. “One thing I’ve always loved about Nevada City is we’ve reached out and supported each other. And the fact that we have a group of people who are refusing, and hurting our businesses and hurting our community, is just really sad.”
Notably, former Nevada City mayor Reinette Senum vocally opposed the state’s mask mandate.
“Our Governor does NOT have that unilateral power to make such orders,” she wrote in a June Facebook post.
Senum, whose tenure as mayor was due to end this year but who won re-election to her council seat, declined her 2020-24 term and abruptly stepped down from the mayorship and the City Council in July.
State health officials made it mandatory to wear masks in most indoor public settings in mid-June. Many law enforcement agencies in the capital region quickly put out statements in response to the mandate saying they would not enforce it for a variety of reasons. Most of them said they would instead take an education-based approach. Many of those agencies made similar statements in November, when the state announced a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for most of the state.
The Nevada City Police Department, which has a staff of just nine sworn officers plus six reserve officers, didn’t make any public statements to that effect, but Police Chief Chad Ellis during Wednesday’s council meeting expressed some concern about enforcement.
“I think we’re still at a place where the outreach and education is huge,” Ellis told the Council. “I think as far as law enforcement going out and doing the enforcement action, it’s something that we’d definitely have to have reviewed.”
Fleming asked his fellow council members whether the city is “pivoting to enforcement” rather than the education-based approach Ellis said he favors.
“I don’t see how we can educate any more,” Councilman Duane Strawser responded. “I don’t understand that. We’re way past that.”
Nevada County reported on its health dashboard it has confirmed 1,895 cases of COVID-19 during the pandemic to date. Over 1,100 of those cases — more than 60% of the nine-month total — have come in the past month, and nearly 30% of the cumulative total was still considered active as of Wednesday.
Nineteen county residents have died of the disease. Fourteen patients were in Nevada County’s two hospitals with confirmed COVID-19 cases Wednesday, including a record-tying five in intensive care units, state hospitalization data show.
Nevada County and 12 other counties that make up “Greater Sacramento” have been placed into Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new region-based stay-at-home order, in which outdoor restaurant dining must cease and businesses like barbershops, hair salons, nail salons and others must also stop operations. Retail stores can stay open but must limit capacity to 20%. It’s the tightest set of restrictions imposed since March.
The order was triggered Wednesday, when the 13-county region fell below 15% intensive care unit capacity, and counties must comply by 11:59 p.m. Thursday.
Several cities and counties across California have issued ordinances allowing for mask fines, most of them in the Bay Area and some in Southern California, and with some of those ordinances focused primarily on noncompliant businesses rather than individuals.
Nevada City joins Yolo County in a smaller group of Greater Sacramento jurisidcitions to do so. Yolo’s monetary fines for individuals start at $25, ramping up to $500 for egregious repeat offenders; for businesses, the fines range from $250 to $10,000. Yolo County issued its own mask order in April, weeks before the state did so.
This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 11:42 AM.
