The movement to defund police is fading quickly in Aspen to make way for demands by residents and elected officials their law enforcement officers crack down on mask scofflaws.
It’s not a law in Aspen to wear masks at the grocery store or other retail businesses to reduce the spread of COVID-19, it’s a public health order.
We’re not going to get into the pros and cons of wearing masks in a pandemic. We’ll leave that up to the people whose best friends know a doctor who works for OSHA, social media memes, Gov. Polis’s shaming tactics, and civil liberty experts defending our right to spread our germs wherever we please.
Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo is right in his position that it’s not a law enforcement matter.
There is no criminal statute, there is no basis to even write a ticket.
“It would be very heavy-handed to have police officers with arrest powers (target someone) merely because their face mask is over their mouth but not their nose,” he said. “Where do you draw the line? At what point does a health violation turn into taking away someone’s civil rights?”
One solution under consideration is reminiscent of something terribly horrible that occurred this century, we can’t quite put our finger on it … it’s called a yellow card system.
This yellow card, as of yet in no particular shape, would be handed out to mask offenders, who at some point would be banned from businesses.
It’s Aspen, so nothing should shock us.
But seriously, what the Hell is wrong with you people?!
Just last month Aspen liberals welcomed four protests in one week held by Black Lives Matter, where protestors carried signs through downtown that read “Defund the Police” and “Cops and Klan, Hand in Hand.”
Now they would welcome police spending their time and using their power to confront and ticket residents not wearing masks?
And people wonder how the whole debate over masks got so damn politicized.