The Nashua Board of Aldermen voted to pass an updated mask ordinance. “By a 13-2 vote, the Nashua Board of Aldermen approved an amendment to the city’s COVID-19 mask policy that says retail businesses must post “Face Covering Required” signs at their entrances and deny service to anyone who is not wearing a mask.”
Related: The Nashua Board of Aldermen Strikes Again
“It’s a recipe for disaster,” said Nancy Kyle, of the New Hampshire Retail Association.
Kyle sent a letter to the board urging it not to pass the measure, saying it’s setting business owners and their employees up for a conflict.
“That’s really hard,” she said. “You’ve got some younger, teenaged kids that are working at retail, and to ask them to enforce this is pretty difficult.”
The new ordinance places draconian requirements on Nashua businesses.
The new provisions, among other things, prohibit employees of restaurants, stores and other public businesses from serving, or providing goods to, “any person not complying with the face-covering requirements” as outlined in the original and amended ordinances.
It means that restaurant servers, store clerks, managers and owners are not only allowed to refuse to serve people not wearing masks, they are required to do so.
Further, the ordinance prohibits owners, managers and employees from allowing “a person to remain on its premises in violation of these requirements,” according to the amendment.
The Alderman for Nashua Ward 2 claimed that residents of his ward support the changes.
“The majority of people I talk to in Nashua are strongly in support of this ordinance,” said Alderman Richard Dowd, who pointed out that wearing masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus is endorsed by a vast majority of scientists and doctors.
Another alderman made an even more outlandish claim.
Ward 8 Alderman Skip Cleaver suggested to his fellow board members that he believes “we have a moral obligation to pass this law. It is the least we can do to protect our citizens.”
After the updated mask ordinance was passed, a Nashua business posted on Facebook their difficulty operating under the new ordinance.
https://www.facebook.com/brustersnh/posts/3210692458979847
Two weeks before this aldermanic meeting, Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess and two Nashua City Hall employees tested positive for COVID-19. The Mayor and his employees quarantined and City Hall was closed again for two weeks.
Three different people reported going into City Hall and seeing City Hall employees working without masks and not socially distancing from each other or the public.
Mayor Donchess has been pushing draconian mask mandates, which the Nashua Aldermen were happy to support, and yet he didn’t enforce mask-wearing at City Hall.
From the Mayor’s remarks at the beginning of the same meeting where the updated mask ordinance was passed:
we decided that the best thing to do to prevent any further spread within City Hall or to members of the public was to close City Hall again as we did back in March. That will take place for two weeks. It’s like a two-week quarantine period for everyone who works in City Hall. People will continue to work remotely mostly, although we do have some people in City Hall such as automobile registration people who are handling automobile registration via mail, via e-mail and via a delivery service at the back of City Hall. I visited there today, people are wearing their masks, are socially distanced, we are trying to make sure that there is no further outbreak, no further spread of the disease, but those were steps we thought we needed to take in the interest of safety of the public and, of course, of our employees.
From Nashua resident Rachel LaLiberty:
I went to register my new car in person right before Labor Day weekend. You had to make an online appointment because city hall doesn’t return emails or phone calls (I tried for days repeatedly). The folks outside had masks, not 6 feet apart, used walkie talkies to radio people in and out for their appointments. Once I went in, not a single employee in city hall had a mask. Literally, no one.So while I’m masked up like a good subordinate, every person who works for the city with a mask mandate flat out doesn’t wear one. Zero consistency. I guess the folks in city hall don’t like the mandate either.
I guess you weren’t at the [Nashua City Hall] RMV with me on 9/1 at 1300 when only the customers were wearing masks.
