Gwinnett County officials are making it clear that they will not tolerate violence from customers in response to retailers requiring face masks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gwinnett County Solicitor-General Brian Whiteside and Georgia Retail Association Executive Director Thomas Beusse released a joint\u00a0public service announcement<\/a>\u00a0respectfully urging the public to comply with face mask policies in retail establishments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whiteside said incidents both nationally and locally have occurred where customers have resisted wearing face masks inside retail establishments that require them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn some cases, customers exhibited violent behavior toward retail store employees,\u201d said Whiteside. \u201cUnder no circumstances will this behavior be tolerated in Gwinnett County.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whiteside went on to say the Gwinnett County Solicitor\u2019s Office supports the right of Gwinnett County retail establishments to require masks and compliance with other guidelines as a condition of entry onto the business premises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAny individual who assaults an employee as a result of being asked to comply with a retail establishment\u2019s policies can be prosecuted. Each misdemeanor offense in Georgia can carry up to 12 months in jail or on probation and up to a $1000 fine. While judges determine sentences, our prosecutors will recommend appropriate jail time for endangering public health and safety,\u201d said Whiteside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 60-second PSA is available at the following link:\u00a0https:\/\/vimeo.com\/453754474<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo: Photo by coryaulrich@gmail.com<\/a> on Deposit Photos<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gwinnett County officials are making it clear that they will not tolerate violence from customers in response to retailers requiring face masks. Gwinnett County Solicitor-General Brian Whiteside and Georgia Retail Association Executive Director Thomas Beusse released a joint\u00a0public service announcement\u00a0respectfully urging the public to comply with face mask policies in retail establishments. Whiteside said incidents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7286],"tags":[8891,8498,8528,8473,8474],"class_list":["post-18660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","tag-brian-whiteside","tag-gwinnett-county","tag-masks","tag-media","tag-sun","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}