Some businesses enforcing their own mask rules

Safety concerns prevail, even as more states lift face-covering edicts

NEW YORK — Although Texas no longer requires people to wear masks to protect against COVID-19, customers do need them to enter De J. Lozada’s store.

“We cannot afford to take chances with the lives of my staffers. They’re young people and their parents have entrusted me with their care,” says Lozada, owner of Soul Popped Gourmet Popcorn, a shop located in Austin’s Barton Creek Square Mall.

Lozada is also concerned about her 85-year-old father, who will return to his part-time job in the store this month. She has a staffer stationed at the door to her shop to tell anyone without a mask that they cannot enter.

Eighteen states currently have no mask requirements, including some that have never made face coverings mandatory. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted his state’s mask mandate on March 2, and Indiana expects to end its mandate on Tuesday.

But many business owners like Lozada are keeping their own rules in place, requiring staffers and customers alike to wear masks for the sake of protecting everybody, particularly their employees.

And the law is on an owner’s side. A company’s premises are private property, so owners can insist that customers wear masks, just as restaurants can require that diners wear shoes and shirts in order to be served, says Michael Jones, an attorney with the law firm Eckert Seamans in Philadelphia. “Storeowners, business owners have the absolute right to require customers, vendors, anyone who comes onto their property to wear a mask,” Jones says. It’s legal as long as owners don’t enforce their requirements in a discriminatory way, he says.

If a customer enters a store without a mask, is asked to leave and doesn’t, that could be trespassing under the law. Lozada says she would call 911 if faced with that situation.

Most retail chains require employees and customers to wear masks. One exception, Foot Locker, says each store is following the requirements of the state where it’s located.

Employers have an obligation under federal law and some state laws to provide a safe workplace for employees, and that can include requiring everyone on the premises to wear masks.