Special Board of Aldermen 12-21-2021 Page 19
Steve Bolton, Corporation Counsel
There is an existing provision in the codification of ordinances that says when no other penalty is provided a violation
is punishable by a maximum fine of $1,000. So that would apply here.
Alderman Clemons
Okay, thank you,
Alderman Tencza
Thank you. | think Attorney Bolton will correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure, but as | read the ordinance as drafted as to
the questions of enforcement, it doesn't say anything here that the businesses are required to enforce the law. | think
the individual who's making the choice to go into the business, certainly the business has a right if they want to
enforce a mask mandate to ask them to put the mask on they can do that now. But if someone was to go into a
restaurant not wanting to face covering, | don't think they should feel that they need to fight with the people. | mean,
obviously, they can take whatever measures they believe are necessary to remove that person from their
establishment. They’re a private business they can do that but | don't see that the business would be liable for
anything other than not posting the mask requirements signs. | know that Economic Development was very good last
time in educating businesses and making sure people have what they need as far as supplies and things like that.
The other thing | worry about is not doing something like this because we're afraid of the few people who are going to
cause a ruckus in the community, right? That's their goal is to draw attention to themselves and to their issues and
draw a ruckus. | think we should kind of think more globally about everybody who's in the community coming and
going. | know my thinking on this issue has changed from our original debate that we had. Back then | thought well
no wearing a mask is, you know, maybe more a little bit about personal liberty and | think back then liking it to wearing
a seatbelt. My thinking has changed on this. Now, | really think it's more comparable to the issue of drunk driving
because no one has the ability to go out and drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol. When these laws are
debated in Concord, no one is up there saying | have an absolute right to get draft and drunk and drive drunk because
it puts yourself at risk but it puts other people at risk as well. It would be great, | think, some of the doctors talked
about this. He would be great if everyone said look I'm gonna look out for my fellow neighbor and go wear a mask
even if it's just to make other people feel more comfortable. Unfortunately, we see that there's not everybody in the
community ascribes to that same way of thinking. So | do think even if it's till the end of January, important to put this
in place now as Ms. Rosenblum said before, it's not going to help all of our family gatherings that we're going to have
over the next week but | hope people take her advice. | know my family will be taking her advice and testing forehand
just to make sure that we're not inadvertently affecting the rest of our family and loved ones. So thank you.
Alderman Klee
Thank you President Wilshire. | really took a long time to have to think about this and after hearing all the numbers
and so on, it became a no brainer for me. It was something that | was going to support. One of the things that | know
that my colleagues that are up in the State House is that we're very familiar with the New Hampshire Constitution,
specifically the Bill of Rights, Article 3 society, its organization and purposes and it talks about society. It says when
men enter into a state of society, they surrender up their natural rights to this society in order to ensure the protection
of others and that's what we're doing here. We're trying to protect others. It's not just for us. | have been double
vaxed. I’ve got my booster. It doesn't mean that | can't get it. We all know that | can but the higher percentage of
people that are getting it and ending up in the hospital are those that are unvaxed. The ones that are having more
critical care needs are those that are unvaxed.
| have spoken to both heads of the hospitals and | know that our ICU beds are overflowing. Not that long ago, | spoke
to one that we had eight patients that had been a couple of days sitting in the ER. During that time, that was eight
patients sitting there. That day, they were able to free up 18 beds. By the end of the day, there were no more beds
available in the end. That's scary.
We received emails, ad nauseam from, and | don't mean that in negative terms, for and against. | respect everybody
that’s for it. | respect everybody that’s against it. The ones that hit me were ones that spoke about patients being
taken care of not in the ED, but in the waiting room - three days. Three days of sitting in a waiting room. If we can do
anything to slow one of those people from not having to be there, | think we should take every single effort that we
can.
