$300 to $5k fine for not wearing a mask in West Hollywood

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If you’re planning on visiting Los Angeles anytime soon, or you live here, West Hollywood has announced that they will begin fining people for failure to mask up. The fine is $250 + $50 fee.  It also stipulates that this is for a first offense. I didn’t find anything about repeat offenders and the associated fees/fines. If you do, let me know, I’ll update.

Updated – 

• 2nd offense is $1k
• 3rd offense of $2k
• 4th time…a whopping $5k

I used to live smack in the middle of WeHo, and don’t live far from it now, and this is going to be an interesting development. I go on walks nearly everyday and have been wearing a mask since very early March. I’ve written in the past about the WHO and Task Force capitulating on mask wearing, but always suspected it was a supply issue not an efficacy one ( and yes I get that it won’t stop all the droplets and the virus itself can pass through, but some is better than none).

I’m certainly not a legal expert, but if you want to unpack some of those issues, this is an interesting article that seems to say that he does have authority via the California Emergency Services Act to enforce such a measure. Newsom recently rolled back bar, restaurant, and movie theater openings in many cities as a result of a spike in cases.

While much of the LA population has adopted mask wearing, I’d conservatively estimate that 30-40% of people I pass on my hour or two walks every day simply aren’t wearing them. Some pop them on when I approach, many do not. I recently walked past a pilates class, saw a packed studio, and only the instructor was wearing a mask – this was pretty surprising although it was inside a classroom. Asymptomatic spread seems to be quite contentious, but when so much conflicting data is out there, I’m personally not willing to risk infecting someone.

If you have some extra time on your hands…it’s pretty entertaining to read the comments on the LASD WeHo’s twitter post about the new fines and fees.

Update: The fine is $250 and a fee of $50 for a total of $300 for the first offense. pic.twitter.com/o6QE3fkucu

— LASD West Hollywood (@WHDLASD) July 2, 2020