ST. LOUIS — On Thursday, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen on the Public Safety Committee were scheduled to hear a bill that would make it illegal to wear certain types of masks in certain settings, but it was pulled from the agenda at the last minute.
St. Louis Board Bill 2 would make it illegal for people to wear masks with the intent of threatening someone or if they're using a mask to hide their face while committing a crime.
Bill sponsor Ward 13 Alderwoman Pam Boyd said the bill is truly aimed at criminals who wear a mask, like a ski mask, adding one more penalty for those who get caught.
“When you have people with the ski mask, the sunglasses, the hoodies, and ironically, in the banks, they say you can't come in a bank like that. and so people in the community are concerned for their safety,” Boyd said.
If a person is caught by police in either of those situations they could be fined $500, put in jail for 90 days or a combination of the two.
Boyd said this could be another tool for police. “They can't get their identity, so it handicaps the police to even follow up, to know who the people are, and the residents are scared to say anything because of the retaliation,” Boyd said.
The second section of the bill would prohibit people from wearing ski masks at schools, on city property, on public transportation and on private property without permission from the owner. In this case violators could be fined up to $100.
But there are exceptions for this part: it won't apply to people wearing a mask for a costume, religious purposes, when its cold or for health reasons.
“So we honored the first amendment and people's first amendment rights,” Boyd said.
But more than 100 people oppose the measure saying it would still violate people's first amendment rights.
Elizabeth with Mask Bloc St. Louis protested the measure.
“A lot of us felt that even with medical exceptions, any sort of law that would make it illegal to wear any sort of facial covering or mask would not just result in people being exposed to and dying from covid 19. it would also be an affront to people's first amendment rights,” Elizabeth said.
She said she believes it would lead to over policing of minorities and the homeless.
"It essentially would require a law enforcement officer to decide based off of what a person looks like, what they're doing, whether or not they're wearing the intent behind why they're wearing a mask, whether or not they're wearing a mask for their own health, to express themselves, or to conceal their identity or to commit a crime. In effect, we fear that what that's going to lead to is a lot of racial profiling,” Elizabeth said.
Alderwoman Boyd said she is going to get input from police, the circuit attorney and the public, then possibly re-work the bill before presenting it again.