San Mateo County Launches Enforcement Unit To Crack Down On COVID Health Order Violators

REDWOOD CITY (CBS SF) -- In an effort to crack down on repeat offenders of the coronavirus health order, San Mateo County Monday launched a new compliance team, and new website to file complaints against alleged offenders.

The eight-member team will work in pairs to follow up on citizen complaints about businesses who ignore the county's orders of sanitation, social distancing and masks. The new task force will initially issue written warnings, and if necessary conduct on site investigations. The task force could issue fines starting at $250 per day, and top out at $3,000 per day.

County supervisors approved the fines in early August, but thus far, have only issued warnings.

"No one's above the law," said county supervisor David Canepa. "You could continue to educate, but then it reaches a tipping point. I had a business owner tell me, 'I'm not going to comply.' So, if those people aren't going to comply, we have to make them comply. The only way to do that is through their checkbook."

Canepa was referring to Pacifica Beach Yoga, located at 1615 Oceana Boulevard, in Pacifica. According to Pacifica Police, the studio has received at least 15 complains of health order violations since April. Last week a Pacifica police officer personally witnessed a violation, and issued a written warning to owner Thomas Antoon.

KPIX 5 cameras captured footage of four members arriving for the 3:30 PM class; two had masks on, the other two were not wearing masks when entering the building.

The current health order for yoga studios restricts attendance to 10% of capacity, and all customers are required to wear masks at all times.

Antoon had no comment regarding the launch of the new compliance team, or possible fines against his business.

"Those days of not fining people, respectfully, those days are over," said Canepa.

Click here to file a complaint about a San Mateo County business violating the coronavirus health order.