HARTFORD COUNTY, Conn. — Editor's Note: Video above aired before the CDC listed Hartford County as an area of high community transmission for COVID-19.
Governor Ned Lamont issued an executive order Thursday evening to allow individual towns and cities to decide on their own how to handle mask mandates in stores and restaurants.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker responded to that order Friday morning and announced there will be a mask mandate for the City of New Haven starting on Monday.
"I think it's pretty safe to say that later today we will be implementing a mask mandate across the city," said Elicker.
New Haven was the first Connecticut county to reach a high-risk level whereas the rest of the state is still lingering in the substantial risk category.
Hartford County was later added to the high-risk level Friday afternoon as well.
"We've had the mask mandate within municipal buildings ever since basically COVID started, even during the recent months when cases were low, but we will be expanding that to places where people are likely to potentially expose other people to COVID," added Elicker.
Some municipalities already have a mask mandate in government buildings, but Lamont's executive order would allow city and town leaders to expand that.
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin is in talks with neighboring towns to possibly implement a team effort enforcement.
"There's some value in doing this stuff statewide but as I said yesterday, we also welcome the flexibility and the authority to make the decision we think are right for our community," said Bronin.
However, other towns like Bloomfield believed Governor Lamont should just issue a statewide mandate.
"These things right here - no matter how cute we make them - they are an inconvenience, but I think because we're still in pandemic times that we should take these minor inconveniences because we know what can be a greater inconvenience," said Mayor Suzette DeBeatham-Brown of Bloomfield.
FOX61 asked the governor about his decision.
"We have some towns that have 99-percent people vaccinated and some towns have less than 50-percent and as the mayor said, mayors and first selectmen ought to have a little more discretion," said Lamont.
DeBeatham-Brown told FOX61 she expects an announcement to be made sometime next week about the joint effort in enforcing masks.
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