The Bend City Council held an emergency meeting Thursday morning, where councilors voted in favor of issuing fines to people not following mask orders.
The fines would range from $100 for the first violation to $500 for the third and the order will stay in effect until Deschutes county enters into Phase Three or Gov. Kate Brown lifts the current mask order. City councilors also re-instated the “strong advisory” against travel to Bend through Labor Day, and asked city staff to begin working on some stricter regulations for hotels and short-term rentals.
Russell said the Council is also evaluating the possibility of providing masks to visitors in Bend, and specifically in the crowded areas of the Deschutes River, like Riverbend Park.
“Most people are following the mask regulation, whether that is visitors or locals,” said Mayor Sally Russell at a press briefing after the city council meeting. “For some local businesses, it is awkward to manage those who are endangering people in our community. This order sends a message: ‘You need to wear your face covering.’”
Interim Bend Police Chief Paul Kansky weighed with some data the BPD collected on Wednesday: It called 25 businesses, and 100% of them said they weren’t having issues with non-compliance.
“So far I can’t find a call yet where a downtown business has called and said ‘we’ve asked a person to leave for refusing to comply with the governor’s order, so please come,'” Kansky said. “If we get that call, we’re going to come. We’ll be right there.”
Bend City Council voted 4-3 in favor of mask enforcement with Justin Livingston, Bill Moseley and Chris Piper voting against it.
Russell said the Council is also evaluating the possibility of providing masks to visitors in Bend, and specifically in the crowded areas of the Deschutes River, like Riverbend Park.
The level of enforcement will depend on who’s available among local police officers, and what’s going on when a problem with an unmasked person arises, Russell said.
For the new lodging regulations, councilors directed city staff to research lodging regulations in other parts of the U.S. Eventually, hotels and short-term rentals may be required to notify their guests of social distancing and mask measures before and during their stay, and ask them to confirm they have not tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days. The Council declined to pursue quarantine requirements for visitors (as some other states have done) because Gov. Kate Brown’s team is considering travel restrictions for people traveling within the state and for people traveling to Oregon from other states, Russell explained. The new rules might also require a 48 gap between different parties in hotel or short-term rental rooms, and require lodging properties to provide protective equipment for its employees.
“As we get closer to the fall and the start of the school year, there will be more of these quick decisions,” Russell said. “The safety of our residents, the economic stability of our businesses and their employees… these are huge and high priorities for every single councilor. We are here to support you.”
Editor’s note: This story is developing. The Source reached out to the Bend Police department for more details about how enforcement might play out in the City of Bend. We’ll update as more information becomes available.
This article appears in Jul 22-29, 2020.
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Interesting, but…
Businesses could already call law enforcement on this matter if a person or patron or guest refused to enter the premises wearing a face covering or mask. Law enforcement had already stated it would respond as available and first pursue an educational approach.
If the individual became unruly, or refused to leave the premises, an appropriate citation or physical arrest then became options. These for example refusing to obey a lawful order from a police officer or trespass.
Such law enforcement contacts taking into account, per the GOV guidelines, if the individual offers having a medical condition where a face covering or mask cannot be worn. Tricky as for the officer to request proof of such a diagnosed condition would likely violate HIPPA law. So there’s more to the equation than perhaps the mayor and city council members have fully absorbed.
As for hotels and motels – Cannon Beach recently re-opened to its critical tourist industry after investing a great deal of time and effort into being able to do so – without making a “quick decision”.
There are no 48-hour “breaks” between guests as the appropriate cleaning measures are in place; for guests, to include pool use, appropriate and easy to understand / follow instructions are provided prior to check-in; employees are provided with masks, gloves, and so on so they can go about their daily duties safely; and visitors are treated politely, professionally, and with dignity.
The mayor might want to take a weekend at Cannon Beach to see how that community is making it work. I’d recommend booking a room at the now employee-owned Hallmark Resort. They’re doing it right.
So let’s remember who voted against this when it comes time for reelection. “Bend City Council voted 4-3 in favor of mask enforcement with Justin Livingston, Bill Moseley and Chris Piper voting against it.”
And I would respectfully disagree with our mayor. Just driving around you can see people blatantly not social distancing or wearing masks and there are tons of visitors here from mostly California and Washington just not being respectful of our town. I say we need our leadership to close down the bars until after Labor Day. Don’t we want our kids to go back to school??? The longer we prolong not being stringent with our rules, the longer this is going to take. And how exactly is the town going to enforce fines? We need to buckle down and pull up our boot straps people. Close it down so we can get back to school and get our numbers down.
From St. Charles Website
As of 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 2020, we have
16 COVID-19 patients
Five of the patients are in the ICU and three of those patients are on a ventilator
We have 24 ICU beds in Bend and six in Redmond for a total of 30 throughout the health system. While having a low number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU may seem like it’s not too big of a deal, it is important to remember that many patients need ICU care for other reasons like heart attacks, strokes or car accidents.
The WHO “had said as far back as February that it did not see asymptomatic cases as a major cause of viral spread.”
The virus is real, if you’re showing symptoms stay home, forcing masks does nothing, this is all political
That is just great, lets fine somebody $100, $200, $500 in times where many are finding it hard to pay rent of buy food. Agreed, we should all do our part and wear a mask, but get real. There will be those who choose not too, fining them will not help. Government overreach for sure. One thing COVID has proven is that people with any bit of authority will overstep it. We are seeing this in many facets of our society in these trying times, sad so sad.
And I respectfully disagree with you, Nichole Perullo. We don’t need to “crack down.”. This virus is here, and if we continue accepting the standards that are being set for dealing with “epidemics”, there will never be a time considered to be “safe enough” for us to venture out and carry on with normal activities freely and we might as well glue masks to our face…or have them grafted on.
The things keeping our businesses closed or hampering their full operation, and therefore a full-resurgence of our economy, are being justified by the epidemic, but actually have little to do with the virus itself. The only things really keeping us from going back to our previous “normal” are fear and our governor’s poorly-based draconian orders.
We heard Dr. Birx admit weeks ago that the fatality numbers were likely inflated as much as 25%. We know enough about “official announcements” that this likely means they are inflated by at least 50%. We know that the bulk of the “spike” in “new cases” reported in Sunbelt states recently are primarily the result of a 55% increase in testing a few weeks ago and a large influx of dual citizens and expatriots coming north out of Mexico seeking better health treatment.
We have also been publically made aware recently of the high number of false positives which PCR tests are famous for giving. The interesting part of this admission is that not only does it prompt questioning of the numbers, it also casts serious doubt on the ever-growing list of “symptoms” (which is bordering on ridiculous) attributed to covid that is being used so effectively to keep fear levels and compliance with arbitrary “rules” high. Despite all the real scientific evidence suggesting otherwise, many still believe that “even asymptomatic cases can spread the virus”, that we “could become infected simply through passing by someone who is not wearing a mask”, that “the entire population is a great risk of dying from Covid”, that “almost any symptom could be an indicator we have become infected”, and that there is “little we can do to ward off the virus except by following orders”, and if we become infected, “there is presently no cure!” All of this has been refuted, but we have been so inundated with mixed messaging, conflicting suggestions and inconsistent rules that we no longer really know what to think beyond the idea that we “must follow the orders or else–“we’ll be putting others at risk”, “the governor will punish us by shutting things down again”, or now, “we’ll be fined.”. Can you state clearly what our current goals are in terms of the virus? If your response is “to prevent deaths”, it should be clear to all by now that deaths occurring (or that will occur) because of our response to the virus likely far-exceed those directly attributable to the virus…especially when you adjust for the false positives and all the other ways numbers are being inflated.
If you still question the idea that the official response has moved beyond concerns for public health, you should also consider the criminal downplaying and suppression of readily-available preventatives and treatments that have been used successfully by desperate doctors around the world since the early stages of the epidemic–options like high-dose intravenous Vit.C, like zinc sulfate and zinc ionofers like quercitin or hydroxychloroquine which studies are now verifying is effective, or like nebulized steroidal anti-inflamatories like budesonide/pulmicort. In most emergencies, those on the frontlines use ingenuity, experience and education to deal with the situations using any effective tool at hand, but in this case, all of the above tools have been aggressively attacked and the use of them sometimes directly impeded by government agencies. Tried lately to get a prescription for Hydroxychloroquine? Had any doctor you’ve heard mentioned the proven effectiveness of Vit D in boosting the immune system and how a chronic deficiency of it in dark-skinned people is more likely the explanation for a higher-than average rate of infection in those people rather than a lack of access to proper care? This inpedence of information and the discouragement of the use of tools proven to be effective in saving lives should make everyone question what is really going on.
No….we don’t need to “crack down harder” on people for not complying…a practice to which there would be no end. What we need to do is rise up in the streets in numbers at least equal to those recently protesting other matters, and cry BS to our governor. If she doesn’t back off or voluntarily step down, we need to remove her and her “experts” immediately. They ceased “serving the citizens of the state” long ago and need to go.