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The City of Houston will begin issuing citations to people who are not wearing a mask.
Mayor Sylvester Turner made the announcement on Monday afternoon.
"For months, we have focused on education and not citations. But now, I am instructing the Houston Police Department to issue necessary warnings and citations to anyone not wearing a mask in public if they do not meet the criteria for an exemption," Mayor Turner said.
Houston police officers will be issuing the warnings and citations to anyone not wearing a face-covering in public, as outlined in Texas Governor Greg Abbott's statewide mandatory mask order.
DETAILS: Statewide mask requirement in Texas now in effect
The citation comes with a $250 fine.
Only those meeting the right criteria will be exempt.
"Lives are at stake, so I am taking this step to save lives and slow the virus from spreading in the month of August," Turner wrote in a tweet.
RELATED: New mask mandate in effect as Houston hospitalization rates rise
Houston police will not respond to 9-1-1 calls about people not wearing masks.
On Monday, Houston also reported 1,104 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the city's total to 50,896. The city's death count increased by six to 478.
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technicallycorrect2 on August 3rd, 2020 at 23:46 UTC »
Don't wear a mask in Boraqua, straight to jail.
Ms-Mode on August 3rd, 2020 at 22:48 UTC »
I’ll wager 250 bucks no Texan law enforcement officer is gonna cite anyone for not wearing a mask and if they do, Texan courts will likely dismiss the citation. We’ve had the same penalties in our county for over 6 weeks and nobody gets fined. The County Sheriff has already stated that his department has little interest in upholding our Governor’s executive orders.
Our County’s DA dismissed charges against a civilian woman who drove up along side a teenager with a BLM poster during a peaceful rally and flashed her taser (which failed) then pepper sprayed the minor (which didn’t fail) while spewing threats and profanity before speeding off through a red light.
Penalties without teeth are pointless.
verstohlen on August 3rd, 2020 at 22:12 UTC »
Hey, say what you want about mandatory masks, but it's one of the best things to happen to us ugly people in a long time.