As mandates expire, companies face choice
Eighteen states currently have no mask requirements, but many business owners are keeping their own rules in place.
Although Texas no longer requires people to wear masks to protect against COVID19, 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 who will 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 today.
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.
“Store owners, 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 their employees, and that can include requiring everyone on the premises to wear masks. In the COVID-19 section of its website, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration notes that
employers are required to have a workplace “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”
When employees at Inteplast Group question why they have to wear masks, managers at the plastic products manufacturer can point to the law, says Brenda Wilson, senior director of human resources and communications of the Livingston, New Jersey-based company that has facilities in 22 states. At this point, masks to protect against COVID-19 are as important as the eye and ear protection that factory workers must wear. But she says Inteplast’s customers also need to be protected.
“They are depending on us to get the products out. If we have an outbreak and that results in losing manufacturing capacity, then no one’s going to win,” Wilson says.