Boise mayor issues health order. Violators may face arrests, business-license suspensions
After nearly eight months, Boise will start enforcing its own health orders.
Mayor Lauren McLean announced Thursday that the city is issuing a health order that will “create consequences for individuals and businesses who knowingly violate orders,” including issuing citations or even arresting people who do not comply with a business’s protocols but refuse to leave.
Boiseans will be able to file complaints against businesses where employees or customers won’t follow health orders, McLean said in a news release. Businesses that pose “a clear and immediate threat” will have their city licenses suspended for at least 10 days on the first violation. The second violation would be a license suspension of at least 20 days, and the third would lead to a year-long revocation.
That’s a change in Boise, where officials have repeatedly declined to enforce past orders on mask wearing and social distancing, instead opting to educate violators.
A violation of the order also would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail, just as past orders were.
As of last week, the city had not issued any citations for failing to wear masks, a requirement McLean put in place in June, or for failing to social distance, a requirement she created in March. Last month two people were arrested for misdemeanor trespassing after refusing to wear a mask at a Central District Health meeting.
The city’s order will also require face coverings in public places and limit public board and commission meetings. Access to the Boise Airport will be restricted to only employees, ticketed passengers, those helping passengers and people picking up or dropping off others.
The order goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 23, just three days before Thanksgiving. Despite statewide restrictions that limit the number of people who can gather to 10, health professionals worry that COVID cases will rise after the holiday as a result of small, maskless gatherings.
The city will also close several buildings until at least Jan. 15, including:
- Boise City Hall
- City Hall West
- All city libraries
- Boise Depot
- James Castle House
- Boise WaterShed
- Foothills Learning Center
- Boise Urban Garden School
- Fort Boise Community Center
Idaho IceWorld, the Boise Senior Center and Boise city pools will all be closed through next summer. Curbside lunch service will still be available at the Senior Center.
The changes match some of the decisions made in the early days of the pandemic, when McLean ordered city facilities closed. Health executives convened in a panel format Tuesday to tell the mayor that unless changes are made, the medical system is on the brink of disaster.
Hospitals are reaching their capacity and health care workers are burning out, they told her. Dr. Steve Nemerson, the chief clinical officer at Saint Alphonsus, said that predictive modeling showed that “unless the community radically changes its compliance with masking, social distancing and crowd size limitations within the next four or five weeks,” predictive models show that hospitals can expect to see double the COVID-19 patients by Christmas “and a tripling thereof” by mid-January.
McLean has said she wants to avoid another full shutdown that would also close businesses and instead wants to focus on more targeted areas of potential spread.
“We recognize that if you have compliance with masking and distancing, you can use a laser to point at the problem,” she told reporters last week. “You can have just as much effect, if not more, than a full-on shutdown, and that would be our preference.”
McLean said at a news conference that she hoped other leaders would take similar action in the Treasure Valley and around Idaho.
“We’re doing what we can and we’re impacting what we can impact, which is the city,” she said Thursday. “But health care professionals have made it clear that one city alone can’t do everything needed to slow the virus and ensure there’s room in the hospitals.”
Seth Ogilvie, McLean’s spokesperson, told the Statesman earlier this week that was a result of two factors. The first is that state code makes violations of Central District Health orders a misdemeanor. Central District Health and its board is the body that gives recommendations and creates requirements for Ada, Boise, Elmore and Valley counties. The second is that city ordinance makes the violation of an executive order, which Boise’s health orders during the pandemic have been, a misdemeanor.
To report a complaint against a business, Boiseans should call the city clerk’s office at 208-608-7040 starting Monday. The city will inform the business of complaints and educate the business on the orders as well as potential consequences of continued violation, according to the news release.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 11:24 AM.
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