San Juan Bautista is the latest city to adopt administrative citations for people who don’t follow the state’s face covering guidance. The City Council unanimously adopted fines that range from $100 to $1,000, based on repeated violations, on Aug. 18.
California released a statewide mandate to wear face masks when outside the home in June.
The city of roughly 2,000 residents joins other jurisdictions around the state, including Monterey, Salinas, Santa Clara County and Santa Cruz County. Some have different fine ranges for individuals and businesses, which can face higher penalties.
While the item was on the consent agenda—where numerous items are approved with one vote—Councilman John Freeman said he pulled it for discussion because he wanted to note that the San Benito County Board of Supervisors failed to pass a similar ordinance earlier that day because they wanted San Juan Bautista and Hollister to pass one first.
“I’m for face masks, I’m for social distancing and I’m for trying to fight this virus,” Freeman said.
Resident and San Juan City Council candidate Jackie Morris said she agreed with Freeman and that it was long overdue.
“I congratulate us for doing the heavy lifting and shame on you Board of Supervisors,” Morris said.
According to the meeting agenda packet, the city has not issued citations as of Aug. 18.
One day prior, the Hollister City Council directed staff to draft an administrative citation ordinance which will be presented on Sept. 8. All but Councilman Rolan Resendiz supported a fine ordinance. Council members Honor Spencer and Carol Lenoir said they were willing to consider an ordinance before they could say whether they supported it or not.
About seven hours before the San Juan Bautista council meeting, the Board of Supervisors briefly revisited adopting an ordinance setting penalties for the unincorporated area. Failing to win enough support to agendize the item again, Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz opted to move on.
Supervisor Mark Medina said the county has had the same ordinance conversation several times. When asked if he supported revisiting the item, he asked De La Cruz why he didn’t support the ordinance last month. De La Cruz responded that he wanted to work with the cities to get consensus. He said that since the Hollister City Council had no consensus (though only Resendiz was against it), it fell back to the county.
Medina then said he did not support agendizing the ordinance again.
“I brought this up months ago and it went nowhere,” Medina said. “I know our chairman wanted to go to the city and make sure everything was unified. At this point in time we did go to the city, nothing was done. We went to ad hoc, nothing was done.”
Prior to De La Cruz delaying the vote in order to collaborate with the cities, Medina had not supported an ordinance that also included penalties relating to any COVID-19 guidelines, including large group gatherings and businesses violating any of the guidelines.
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