Ottawa bylaw officers will now be handing out fines, not warnings, to any individual or business flaunting the city’s indoor mask requirements amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Ottawa’s bylaw department tweeted Thursday that the “warning phase” is ending for the city’s temporary mask rules, first set in mid-July and recently expanded to at least the end of October.
Anyone who refuses to wear a mask in an indoor public setting will now be subject to a possible $240 fine, and any operator found to not comply with the mask requirements could face a $490 fine.
Anyone with a medical exemption to wearing a mask will not be fined.
Before now, bylaw officers had been instructed to take an educational approach to enforcing the new rules.
Ottawa expanded its mask bylaw roughly three weeks ago to include the common space of apartment buildings and some outdoor spaces where large gatherings make physical distancing unrealistic.
Global News learned earlier this week, however, that no outdoor mask zones have yet been established under bylaw services’ new powers.
“There have been no outdoor public spaces to date that have, to the satisfaction of Ottawa Public Health, met the thresholds necessary to warrant implementation of the mandatory mask requirement,” said Roger Chapman, director of bylaw and regulator services, in a statement to Global News.