To avoid ‘a mini-riot,’ Kansas City didn’t enforce its own mask order at public meeting
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As dozens of Kansas Citians decried public health guidance and called the city’s current mask mandate tyrannical Wednesday night, the order itself went unenforced as soon as constituents found their seats.
This lack of enforcement was on purpose, a city official said.
A City Council committee voted Wednesday to send an ordinance extending Kansas City’s mask mandate into late September to full council. Nearly 100 mostly maskless community members voiced opposition inside the Kansas City Regional Police Academy, where the meeting was held.
The current mask mandate — in place until Aug. 28 — was not enforced by police, security or council as the open meeting unfolded in front of the mayor and City Council members.
In a special sitting of the City Council’s Transportation, Infrastructure, and Operations Committee, members voted unanimously to send the ordinance, which would extend the mandate to Sept. 23, to full council for a vote on Thursday.
Morgan Said, a spokeswoman with Mayor Quinton Lucas’s office, said Thursday morning that everyone who attended the meeting was required to wear masks and had to comply with the rule in order to get through the door.
As two women entered the room Wednesday evening, reluctant to mask up, a security officer handing out masks told them: “If it happens to slide down, it happens to slide down.”
Very few people kept their face coverings on.
“In a crowd comprised mostly of folks who compared wearing masks to tyranny, communism, and child abuse, it was disappointing, but not surprising, that many attendees elected to break the City’s rules,” Said said.
The order was put in place to mitigate the spread of the highly transmissible COVID-19 delta variant. Case counts have again been rising as large portions of the population refuse to get vaccinated against the virus.
Said added that regular meetings at City Hall do not typically draw a crowd of protesters refusing to comply with city ordinance. The police department contended that it wasn’t their responsibility to enforce the mandate at the meeting.
“Enforcement of the mask mandate is a function of city entities and always has been,” said Sgt. Jake Beccina, a spokesman with the Kansas City Police Department.
Non-compliance with mask requirements can be reported to the health department at covidviolations@kcmo.org or by calling 311.
Becchina said there was no need for the department to report non-compliance since city staff members were in attendance and saw the non-compliance.
Avoid a ‘mini-riot’
Said, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said the lack of enforcement by the city was intentional.
“Rather than starting a mini-riot by at once forcibly removing 100 attendees—who outnumbered the security and police staff—the City permitted them to remain at the venue in the unique situation where individuals came solely to protest masking,” she said.
Kansas City’s mandate, which went into effect on Aug. 2, applies to those over the age of 5 in indoor spaces regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status, with some exemptions.
The metro added 730 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday. The weekly average as of Wednesday was 652. One week ago it was 703 and two weeks ago it was 681.
If ordinance 210694, the only item on Wednesday evening’s agenda, receives full council approval at Thursday’s meeting, which begins at 3 p.m., the mask requirement will extend to Sept. 23. Any further extension also needs City Council approval.
The mayor’s spokeswoman also said that most enforcement is typically accomplished by posting signage and asking individuals or small groups to wear masks. Mass demonstrations are rare.
She added that the city health department is continuing to enforce the mandate. Between Aug, 2 and Wednesday, the city received 271 complaints and handed out warnings to more than 150 Kansas City establishments with complaints filed against them.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 1:26 PM.
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