Board of Aldermen 09-22-2020 Page 58
The bottom line is | think we’ve made reasonable modifications. One of the important things in this
supplement are for gyms. | know there are a number of gyms that have been telling people you have to
wear face masks when you are on the equipment and machines. Everybody will tell you, including the
CDC, is that when you are doing heavy exercise you should not be wearing a mask. And | think that’s one
of the things that we address in this. So | think it’s important that we pass it. | think it’s important that we
look at all citizens. | can go with and say OK the shoes and the shirt and you have to be over 18 to be able
to have a drink and so on. And yes, we can put that reasonably to this. But the bottom line is that if] wear a
mask then someone who is more vulnerable whether or not they do it or they don’t wear a mask, but they
can go shopping. So they can’t stop this from happening except for to stay home.
And Ill be honest with you, | had an e-mail that came in just before the meeting that basically said to me if |
don't, if people don’t wear a mask, | can’t leave my house. And | don’t want to see that happening. So|
want to be fair to all citizens and | think we need to pass this, thank you.
President Wilshire
Alderman Cleaver?
Alderman Cleaver
Yes, thank you very much Madam President. Alderman Dowd hit everything on key and everything he said
was exactly right and well-done. | think we have a moral obligation to pass this law. It is the least we can
do to protect our citizens and | think we have to do, simple as that.
President Wilshire
Alderman Lopez.
Alderman Lopez
Yeah, | just wanted to clarify that for my part these Legislation amendments and stuff don’t come out of a
vacuum. There was a lot of constituent concems that were coming to me regarding supermarkets
particularly in May and how adherence was going. And people were starting to show pandemic fatigue at
that point. They were already getting tired of being locked up, of having to change theirlife. Its beena
huge and very difficult adjustment process for everybody. But at the same time, there’s been a lot of
concerns raised by individuals from those businesses too that they have to serve the public. They don’t
want to be in a position where they have to confront the public but we inadvertently — the suggestion was
made to me that we inadvertently created something of that situation by making it an Ordinance that didn’t
include any responsibility by businesses, because otherwise the businesses would have to call the Police
every time somebody did it. So now businesses as people get fatigued and customers start coming back
that are a little less cautious are being put in a position were they have to say, ok well if you are breaking
arule | don’t want to be Karen, sorry Alderman Caron, | don’t like want to call the cops on you and all that
kind of stuff. There’s this whole like cultural pressure. So | think by having a consistent approach where we
say, OK look, everybody is subject to the same Ordinance; Alderman are subject to it, the shop owners are
subject to it, essential personnel are, non-essential personnel, customers.
| think we are doing more to make sure that everybody has the same script. | think that’s also the reason
why we have to have the posted signs. Because some people were kind of creating their own language
and their own explanation of what was going on and that was creating all kinds of debates too. | think it’s
very important, something that Alderman Lu said at the Committee when we were speaking that there area
lot of different agencies and institutions that are providing public comment and opinions and things of that
nature. This is the problem of having a pandemic in your front lawn. Typically when new diseases are
discovered, they are in a far off section of the world, if they are even out of our country, they are isolated,
action is taken to keep them from out of containment and then there’s time to study them and fully
understand what's going on and howthey work. We didn’t have that this year, in fact, we also had the
