Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 31
Lawmakers in a suburban New York county have approved a bill to ban masks in public places with exemptions for people who cover their faces for health reasons or religious or cultural purposes.
Supporters said the bill approved Monday by the Republican-controlled Nassau County Legislature on Long Island would prevent violent protesters from hiding their identity.
Legislator Howard Kopel said the measure was introduced in response to “antisemitic incidents, often perpetrated by those in masks” since the Oct. 7 start of the latest Israel-Hamas war.
All 12 Republicans in the legislature voted in favor of the measure, while the body’s seven Democrats abstained.
The county lawmakers acted after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said in June that she was considering a ban on face masks in the New York City subway system. No specific plan has been announced to enact such a ban, which like the Nassau measure was floated in response to the rise in mask-wearing protesters.
The New York Civil Liberties Union criticized the Nassau mask ban as an infringement on free speech rights.
“Masks protect people who express political opinions that are unpopular,” the group’s Nassau County regional director Susan Gottehrer said in a statement.
The Nassau bill makes it a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for anyone to wear a facial covering to hide their identity in public.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill.
“Unless someone has a medical condition or a religious imperative, people should not be allowed to cover their face in a manner that hides their identity when in public,” he said in a statement after the legislature’s vote.
Dozens of public speakers for and against the bill packed the legislative chambers.
Democratic Legislator Arnold Drucker said before the vote that the bill “overstepped and could be detrimental to First Amendment rights.”
Source: Spectrum News NY1
