Beginning Monday, anybody entering a grocery store or other retail business in Wheat Ridge will be required to wear a face covering under a new order from City Manager Patrick Goff intended to help protect customers and employees from the novel coronavirus.

The order, issued on Wednesday, runs through May 30, and applies to customers entering critical businesses that are allowed to be open under Colorado’s public health order. Customers will be required to wear medical or non-medical masks or other face coverings that shield their nose and mouth whenever entering businesses or “conducting any interactions within such businesses.”

“We realize this is more restrictive than any state-issued stay-at-home order or other public health order; however, the intent is to continue to control the spread of COVID-19 as we begin to reopen businesses,” Goff said in a statement posted on the city’s Facebook page. ”The governor’s safer-at-home plan and measures like this new order requiring face coverings be worn within Wheat Ridge businesses will help to protect our community from the further spread of the virus.”

Gov. Jared Polis on April 3 urged all Coloradans to wear non-medical face coverings whenever they go out in public during the coronavirus outbreak, and last week he specifically ordered essential workers — including grocery store employees — to wear masks.

On Thursday, the state issued a new public health order supporting Polis’s previous executive order requiring essential workers to wear masks. The order requires employees at critical businesses such as banks, child care facilities, pharmacies and grocery stores who come within 6 feet of other employees or the public to wear cloth masks while working. It also orders those workers to wear gloves if they are in close contact with customers.

Colorado’s stay-at-home order expires at the end of the day Sunday, and Polis has said the state will enter a new “safer-at-home” phase beginning Monday. That’s when some retailers will have the option to reopen with curbside pickup, followed by a limited number of customers being allowed into those businesses beginning May 1.

Also on May 1, “one-on-one” services such as hair saloons and tattoo shops, as well as dental offices and other elective medical providers, will be able to resume operations. Restaurants and bars will remain closed to in-person service until at least mid-May, the governor has said.

At a news conference Wednesday, Polis stressed that people should continue to wear masks when going out even as the state slowly begins to reopen through May. He read a question from a member of the public who was concerned that she had seen a sharp reduction in the number of shoppers wearing masks immediately after the announcement of the move to “safer at home.”

“This will not work,” Polis said of such a drop in mask usage. “…If anything, this should increase our mask-wearing culture as we trust people more. The number of folks who wear masks, at grocery stores, out and about, needs to go up. This needs to happen for it to work.”

Updated 6 p.m. April 24, 2020 Following clarification from the governor’s office, this story has been updated to report that personal service providers and elective medical providers, such as tattoo shops or dental offices, can begin reopening May 1.

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