Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, who at one time was a champion of small business, will now fine businesses who do not comply with his mask mandate.
On Thursday, McKee signed an executive order to penalize up to $500 any bars, restaurant, gyms, churches, etc who fail to enforce the mask and proof of vaccination mandates..
Masking will be required of employees and patrons inside venues with a capacity of 250 or more regardless of vaccination status.
This will apply to all recreation and entertainment establishments, all historical and cultural establishments, all religious and faith-based organizations, and all retail or service businesses conducting operations in indoor venues.
Indoor venues with a capacity of fewer than 250 persons (including retail, restaurants, venues of assembly, and entertainment establishments) will be required to mask or show proof of vaccination of employees and patrons.
Establishments can adopt either:
- An across the board indoor masking requirement,
- An across the board vaccination requirement,
- Or allow individuals to either be masked or show proof or vaccination.
This applies to recreation and entertainment establishments, historical and cultural establishments, religious and faith-based organizations, and retail or service businesses conducting operations in indoor venues.
Governor McKee also announced that the State will distribute 100,000 at-home rapid COVID-19 test over the next two weeks but his Department of Health won’t tell anyone where they actually are and who received them.
“For the safety of the staff/clients and to ensure that the available at-home test kits are distributed in an equitable fashion, RIDOH did not release a list of individual community partners who distributed the test kits.” More
— katherine gregg (@kathyprojo) December 23, 2021
Questions I still have:
If @RIHEALTH isn’t releasing locations, how can the public learn if any at-home test kits are still available?
How were people supposed to know where to get the tests? Did any of the community partners advertise it?
— Tyler Dumont (@TylerDumontNews) December 23, 2021
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