Mask wearing should be enforced by council wardens - Yorkshire Post Letters

I have just completed my weekly shop at Tesco and I am astounded at the number of customers not bothering to wear a face mask. Equally worrying was the total lack of enforcement by store staff.

Tesco, like all other large retail shops, goes to great lengths to protect their assets and stock. They employ security staff and use civil recovery schemes.

At the beginning of the food supply chain, as wholesale food purchasers, bio-security will be an important consideration in their relationships with farmers and suppliers. Therefore, applying the same duty of care principles, the protection of both staff and customers should be equally important. Store security staff should be used to enforce bio-security in store.

Councils employ street wardens who fine people for dropping litter (and rightly so) and the enforcement capacity of these wardens has previously been extended to include car parking controls. It must be a simple extension of their duties to use these wardens to enforce bio-security for people queuing to enter shops.

The police are not the only law enforcement agency; other organisations could have a legal or moral duty to enforce mask wearing.

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Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor