GAINESVILLE – A federal judge has affirmed Alachua County’s authority to put in place a mandatory mask policy aimed at reducing the spread of the coronavirus.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a decision earlier this month denying several plaintiffs’ motions for a preliminary injunction against the county’s emergency order, which was issued as the state began its reopening phases.
Plaintiffs in the case of Israel Ham et al. v. Alachua County Board of County Commissioners et al. had argued that the order was unconstitutionally vague, violated due process rights and did not comply with the equal protection clause. But Walker, citing a recent coronavirus-related decision written by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, failed to establish a need for an injunction.
“... Alachua County’s emergency order is rationally related to a legitimate interest – preventing a spread of COVID-19 – and, therefore, plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails,” the district judge said in the June 3 decision.
Plaintiffs had claimed that they had respiratory conditions or mental conditions that prevented them from safely wearing masks to places such as grocery stores, restaurants and public transit.
The plaintiff’s attorney, Raemi Eagle-Glenn, was quoted in the Gainesville Sun as saying that though the injunction was rejected, the case had led to needed modifications of the ordinance, such as no longer requiring citizens to have a doctor’s note to be exempt from the policy. But the county’s spokesman, Mark Sexton, disputed that claim.
"When we saw confusion out in the public about the masks, we updated and clarified our language a couple times, and that's what happened here,” Sexton told the Florida Record. “It was unrelated to this lawsuit."
Though the mask ordinance does provide for ascending fines for violations – $125 for the first offense – no citations have so far been issued, he said, and the vast majority of residents are complying with it.
“There has not been a single arrest, and we don’t know of a single citation that has been written,” Saxton said.
He stressed that a violation of the ordinance is not a criminal offense nor an excuse to stop and frisk someone.
“All people have to do is say they have a reason for not wearing a mask, and that's all that is required," Saxton said.
And even though an earlier version of the ordinance may have caused some business owners in the county to apply it in an overzealous manner, that isn’t enough to merit an injunction against a policy aimed at protecting the public’s well-being, Judge Walker said in his ruling.
“The fact that some businesses or clinics may have misapplied the exemption under a prior iteration of the emergency order does not amount to a total deprivation of basic life necessities,” he said, adding that there was no evidence that multiple grocery chains misapplied the measure.