Legislators in Nassau County, New York approved a controversial bill banning people from using masks as a means to disguise or conceal their identity.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman signed the bill into law at a public event on Wednesday. The County Legislature approved it last week in a vote that saw all 12 Republicans voting in favor while all seven Democrats abstained.
“Take your mask off. Don’t be a coward,” Blakeman said at a press conference after the signing, insisting that “this is a bill that is going to protect the public.”
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The bill was drafted by Nassau County Legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip, a Republican who was once drafted by the state party to run in the special election to replace expelled Rep. George Santos.
According to the bill, wearing a mask to conceal your identity will now be classified as a misdemeanor, punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and up to one year in prison.
The ban extends to all people on a “sidewalk, walkway, alley, street, road, highway or other public right-of-way or public property,” the law states. It also extends the ban to private property “without the consent of the owner or tenant.”
It also gives police officers the ability to force drivers to remove masks during traffic stops if they suspect the wearer is committing or intends to commit a crime.
The bill includes carve-outs for people wearing a mask for “health or safety of the wearer,” as well as religious or cultural purposes, and people celebrating a holiday where “the wearing of masks or facial coverings are customarily worn.”
Both New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have voiced support for similar bans on masked protesters—at least in the subway.
Hochul floated the idea for a mask ban in the New York City subway in June in the wake of antisemitic incidents linked to some pro-Palestinian protesters, including an incident where masked demonstrators chanted “raise your hand if you're a Zionist” to subway riders.
“You’re sitting on a subway train and someone puts on a mask like this and comes in—you don’t know if they’re going to be committing a crime, they’re going to have a gun, or whether they’re just going to be threatening or intimidating you because you are Jewish, which is exactly what happened the other day,” the governor said in an interview with CNN. “Absolutely unacceptable in the State of New York.”
Hochul later softened her stance, telling the New York Post she would rather support an enhanced penalty for criminals wearing masks.
The New York Civil Liberties Union, who have also opposed the bans proposed by Adams and Hochul, said Blakeman was waging a “culture war over protecting the rights and well-being of his own residents.”
“The ban’s so-called health and religious exceptions will result in police officers—who are not medical or religious experts, but who do have a track record of racially-biased enforcement—to determine who needs a mask and who doesn’t, and who goes to jail,” NYCLU Director Susan Gottehrer said in a statement sent to the Daily Beast.
Surprisingly, New York state already had a mask ban until very recently—an archaic law passed in 1845 as a response to the Anti-Rent Wars that took place in the Hudson Valley and Albany County. The NYPD has occasionally used this statute to prosecute protesters, including anti-Vietnam War protesters in the 1960s and Occupy Wall Street protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks in 2011.
The law was repealed by former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2020 during the height of the pandemic.
