NEW HAVEN, Conn. — New Haven's indoor mask mandate, which was issued for all public spaces several weeks ago, appeared to be working on Tuesday, city officials said.
Officials from the Health Department and Building Department began visiting businesses last week. In 75 visits, only four businesses were in violation on the mandate in some way.
There was no choice but to issue a mask mandate, as the number of COVID-19 cases remains high, the mayor said.
"180 to 200 cases per week for the month of August and for comparison we saw 45 cases per week during the first week of July," said Mayor Justin Elicker (D-New Haven).
Businesses that received a visit from the city's COVID-19 task force were on board with the mask mandate.
"We need to really make this last effort to hopefully forget about Covid sometime this year," said Andrea Corazzini, owner of G Cafe Bakery on Orange Street.
Chris Crafted By Hand Cafe owns neighboring, Crafted By Hand Cafe and said the city emptied out more due to the mandate.
"But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do," he added.
On Tuesday afternoon, the city's COVID-19 Task Force visited a dozen or so businesses and no red flags were reported, which appears to be a trend.
"Approximately over 75 businesses were visited between Thursday and Friday by the task force and to have four verbal warnings is actually really good news for us," said Maritza Bond, New Haven Health Director.
The city has a three-tier enforcement system in place.
- Verbal warning
- Written warning plus a $100 fine
- Shut down
"And when a premises is shut down, they have to work with the health department team and the task force team with a corrective action plan on how they’re going to mitigate any potential hazard to the public," Bond added.
The inspectors, who issued verbal warnings, said some of the warnings were employee related, including some saying because they work behind a plexiglass shield they did not think they had to wear one.
Nightlife establishments will be one of the focuses this week, according to Bond.
Tony Terzi is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at tterzi@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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