The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee is set to consider a bill (S-2814) on Thursday that would make failure to wear a mask in stores with posted signage during the health emergency in New Jersey criminal in nature and subject to fines.
According to the bill’s language, “a person commits a violation if that person is not properly wearing a mask which at a minimum simultaneously covers the nose and mouth.”
If passed, the bill would take effect immediately and will expire only when the state of emergency declared by Governor Murphy and in effect since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, expires.
An offense is punishable by imprisonment for up to 30 days, a fine of $500, or both.
A similar bill introduced in the Assembly in September is still awaiting a floor vote. If the bills are passed in the Assembly and Senate, the differences between the two bills will need to be mediated before being voted on again, and then will head to Governor Murphy’s desk for his approval.
A spokesman for the ACLU slammed the Senate bill, saying that bringing in the government to this issue will not end well.
“We’re not going to criminalize our way out of this pandemic,” the spokesman said. “I’ll say it again: Every time we criminalize something and use the police to enforce it, it disporportionately affects Black and Brown communities and leads to unnecessary escalation. There are better solutions.”
Not wearing a mask puts the lives of those around you at risk. People who don’t wear masks in public should be penalized.
you think someone who doesn’t wear a mask PERFECTLY over his nose and his mouth should go to jail for 30 days? Will that make you feel good? Or when a child refuses to or I need to catch my breath because the heat is making me pass out, I should be fined 10,000? Why cant you buy an N95 mask and then you can be sure you are safe, instead of making me do the work for you?
Yay for fascism. They ban plastic bags and now making it a criminal offence not to wear a mask.
Wouldn’t being forced to wear a mask be “face-ism”?
Good one!!
Criminalize?!? There’s nothing else going on that the state legislature can get involved in and try to make better, really better, for the citizens other than whether or not people were stupid masks and whether to make a criminal?
Ladies and gentlemen, and all those not included, we must take back our state from these Looney Toon leftists!
Turning into China!
No excuse for not voting this year. YOU GOT THE BALLOT.
Take 2 minutes & fill it out. Straight down column A
What if you wear a plastic bag as a mask?
and carry your groceries in a mask?
Seeing the responses, I conclude that we are an ipcha mistabra population. Had they forbidden masks in public places because its a security threat (think banks, jewelry stores), all the commenters would have been up in arms against govt interference in the right to choose, the right to wear what I want, the right to protect my identity, the right to protect my health as I see fit, the right to keep my identity private etc ad nauseum. So maybe the state should ban masks in an effort to get ppl to actually wear them.
If there’s a scintilla if a chance that you may cause harm, even if the protection is doubtful, and a safek, you must follow the majority. The majority of Poskim, regardless of your opinion of Murphy (who I despise).
The bill may wind up punishing the proprietors for not enforcing masks and social distancing so in any case, someone has to pay. For that reason alone, because your actions, rational or not may cause financial harm to someone else Halacha is clear.
Now we know why Governor knucklehead let the criminals out of prison, it is to make room for anyone that defies any of his orders!!
He will have his way and you will blindly obey!