As Conway votes on its face mask mandate, Horry County continues patchwork approach
Mask up, Conway.
As Horry County continues its patchwork approach to combating the deadly coronavirus pandemic, Conway City Council on Monday voted to extend the city’s face covering mandate for another 60 days.
That means anyone visiting a retail or food service business — including grocery stores, laundromats and pharmacies — has to wear a mask, gaiter or other covering while inside. Employees of those establishments are also required to wear a mask or covering. Face coverings are not required while a person is dining outdoors.
The city also voted to extend an emergency ordinance for another 60 days, a measure that gives officials broader powers to respond to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“I believe ... the absence of a mask ordinance leaves you playing Russian Roulette,” Conway Mayor Barbara Jo Blain-Bellamy said after Monday’s meeting. “The person standing next to me in a line at the store, the person next to me wherever, may be that bullet in the chamber. They may not be.”
She added: “I believe that while people have all kinds of personal rights, when those rights impact whether or not I have a chance to live, or whether my mother gets to live, I believe that gives us not only an opportunity but a responsibility to try to safe guard the life and health of others.”
Under Conway’s ordinance, a person is exempt if they have a medical condition or religious belief that prevents them from covering their nose and mouth. A person can also remove their face covering if asked to do so by a police officer or when receiving a service that requires access to the mouth, like a teeth cleaning at the dentist. Children under 5 years old are exempt from the ordinance. Conway city police are tasked with enforcing the ordinance and can issue civil infractions and fines to those who violate the ordinance.
According to the ordinance, business owners and others responsible for making sure their employees wear masks at work who don’t comply could be fined $100 per day and potentially have their businesses license or other permits revoked. The city could also hit the business owner with a public nuisance charge.
A patchwork of ordinances
Conway’s vote to keep a face covering mandate in place comes as the various governments in Horry County have taken a patchwork approach to local coronavirus protections, even as cases have climbed in recent weeks.
Across the municipalities, the mandates are similar: Face coverings aren’t required outside or on the beach, but they are required in stores and other businesses.
Conway, Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach have all had face covering mandates in place since the summer, and have each renewed their mandates several times. Horry County, governing all of the unincorporated areas in the county, had a mask mandate in place from July 3 to end of October but allowed its mandate to expire. An attempt to reinstate the county mandate failed last month.
Meanwhile, other towns like Aynor, Loris and Surfside Beach have never enacted a face covering mandate at any time. Tony Godsey, the town manager of Aynor, said Monday that the town council passed a resolution encouraging face coverings over the summer but has never mandated the practice. The town government, for its part, he said, has remained closed to the public and taken other steps to ensure town employees don’t contract or share the virus.
“We’ve been proactive,” Godsey said. “It’s worked out pretty well. Everyone seems happy taking care of their own business.”
Similarly, Loris Mayor Todd Harrelson said Monday that the town has encouraged residents to wear a face covering but has not ever mandated the practice. Despite that, he said, many people wear masks voluntarily and several businesses have voluntarily closed their inside spaces or enforced a face mask requirement of their own.
With the disparate mandates in place, you’d be forgiven for having to check a map to see where you are and which mandates might apply to you. Blain-Bellamy, of Conway, noted that because donut holes in the municipalities that have mask mandates are governed by the county, not having a state or county-wide mandate can cause confusion for people.
“Somebody can literally stand on this lot in the center of where the City of Conway is, and not be required to wear one,” she said. “Just the confusion of, ‘Am I in the city? Or am I not?’ does not fare well for us in terms of making sure we enforce our ordinance.”
Conway Police Chief Dale Long said Monday that his officers have not cited anyone for not complying with the face covering ordinance but have warned several people to wear a mask.
Conway’s renewal also comes as the number of COVID-19 cases in the area have risen in recent weeks. After a dip in cases from late August to late September, cases started to rise again. According to data from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Horry County saw more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 last week, the most in a single week since mid-July. Since the beginning of October, the county has seen more than 5,400 new cases of the coronavirus and 74 new deaths.
Blain-Bellamy said while she’ll work to ensure Conway residents are protected, she would like more cohesion in South Carolina when it comes to face coverings.
“I do wish there were a seamless ordinance that covered everyone in the county,” she said. “I’d prefer it be statewide.”
This story was originally published December 7, 2020 at 6:51 PM.