As Ontario municipalities enact new measures regarding the use of masks in commercial locations, business owners could face difficulty when it comes to dealing with customers who refuse to comply.
As Ontario municipalities enact new measures regarding the use of masks in commercial locations, business owners are on their own when it comes to dealing with customers who refuse to comply.
On Tuesday, Toronto and Ottawa joined Kingston in establishing rules requiring a non-medical face covering inside businesses open to the public.
Under the new rules, businesses are responsible for making sure customers wear a mask, and face fines — $1,000 under the Toronto bylaw — for failing to display and enforce their mask policy.
However, legal experts say that short of calling police on customers who don’t comply, businesses may find they have little power to enforce the policy.
Toronto’s sample policy states employees are to be trained on what to do if customers become “aggressive” or request more information on the science of masks.
“What employers should do, obviously, is to follow whatever the bylaw says, but not a lot of guidance is provided,” said Toronto employment lawyer Nadia Zaman.
“Some of it is sort of left to the employers to figure out, in terms of how they’re going to deal with specific scenarios.”
One scenario facing business owners is the possibility that a person will purposefully try to enter without a face covering.
Recent videos circulating on social media have depicted people trying to enter Toronto-area stores or hospitals without ma