City, POA see little mask mandate impact

After the California Department of Public Health issued a four-week mandate to wear masks inside public buildings whether vaccinated or not beginning this past Wednesday, both the City of Canyon Lake and the Canyon Lake Property Owners Association have decided, for different reasons, to do little to nothing to implement the mandate.

“The governor has not issued an executive order, press release, or ‘mandate’  that we are aware of,” Canyon Lake POA General Manager Eric Kazakoff said on Tuesday prior to the state’s Wednesday mask start date. “In fact, as of Tuesday morning, the governor had made no public statements or social media posts about this. The state’s own COVID-19 site had no information about this. In fact, the last update to that site regarding masks was on Nov. 19. There were no ‘Orders’ posted on the CDPH website.”

City of Canyon Lake City Manager Chris Mann also said there would be no implementation of the mandate for the general public or businesses within the city. Only within public facilities will the mask requirement be enforced.

“As a local government agency, the city is required to abide by this guidance within public facilities,” Chris said. “While we encourage residents and businesses to take reasonable precautions to protect themselves from COVID-19, we recognize that there are widely varying beliefs and feelings on the matter, and that ultimately each person and business must do what they believe is best.”

Chris said, as he has in the past, that policing of the state-mandated COVID-19 restrictions is up to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department with which the city contracts its police service.

“As the city contracts with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department for police services, the city will not be actively enforcing against individuals or businesses that choose not to follow the state mask mandate,” Chris said. “In addition, the city encourages residents to continue supporting Canyon Lake businesses during these difficult times.”

Throughout the pandemic, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has been vocal regarding his opposition to enforcing any state-mandated COVID-19 restrictions. It is anticipated that he will not alter that direction with this new mask mandate.

Meanwhile, the Canyon Lake POA will wait for further direction before deciding if or how any changes to its current operations will be implemented.

“This appears to be a hastily put together and very disorganized ‘requirement’,” Eric said. “At this point, we will be posting the information verbatim from the CDPH site at our public facilities for our members’ information. We’re not aware of any specific restaurant closure requirements, so at this time, our restaurant customers are expected to be able to eat and drink as they do now. We will inform our members and staff and request that they observe the requirements, but just as the City of Canyon Lake and Sheriff have not used their resources to enforce these types of state regulations, I don’t expect that the CLPOA will be doing that either.”

Like the city, Eric said the Canyon Lake POA said they will turn to the Sheriff’s Department to enforce any forthcoming mandates.

“We are a private corporation, and we can only enforce those rules that we make, not the rules or requirements of other agencies or entities,” Eric said.

“I’m sure this may affect some upcoming club events, but that remains to be seen. We do of course want our members and employees to be safe, so we will continue to pass along the information the state puts out. Right now what we have is a press release from the CDPH office of communications which talks about a ‘requirement.’ If the state issues an “Order” of some kind, we will pass that along as well.”