PENSACOLA — Six weeks after Mayor Grover Robinson ordered masks required inside businesses within Pensacola city limits, police say they have written no citations at all and have issued just two trespass warnings, both to people who refused to leave private property.
The requirement took effect June 26 and applies to anyone entering a business inside the city.
Downtown support for the rule
Most people who spoke downtown Friday said they backed the mandate, including Jana Hoggle, who lives in Lillian.
“It keeps everybody safe and it makes me feel safer knowing that everybody’s got a mask,” Hoggle said. “Originally, we might have a mask on but we’d go in a place and 90 percent of the people didn’t.”
Another resident, Emily Dillons, compared the requirement to other everyday safety rules. “It’s like wearing a seat belt or wearing a motorcycle helmet,” she said. “Is it really that big of an inconvenience to try and not get people sick?”
County has rejected a mandate twice
Outside the city limits, the picture is different. The Escambia County Commission has voted on a countywide mask requirement twice and rejected it both times, most recently Thursday night.
Most speakers who opposed a mandate at that meeting framed it as a question of government overreach rather than public health. One man told commissioners he could not wear a mask for a medical reason and added that he was not going to be told what to do with his body.
The split leaves a patchwork along the Northwest Florida coast, where a shopper can be required to mask inside a Pensacola storefront and face no such rule at a business a few miles outside the city line.