A Police force in London has said it won’t be responding to calls regarding shoppers not wearing masks.
Masks will be mandatory in shops from Friday.
From Friday, shoppers will have to wear a face covering by law, with those disregarding it at risk of getting a £100 fine.
Devon and Cornwall’s police chief said officers will arrive at an incident and only enforce the law if violence and/or disorder is involved.
It hasn’t been made clear how these new rules will be enforced, and some sources suggest that supermarkets have internally agreed not to report shoppers too, because they don’t know who and who doesn’t legally have to wear a mask – for example, asthma sufferers don’t have to comply with the new rules.
Police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall Alison Hernandez said: ‘We are moving back into ordinary policing. The expectation is that [police officers] will only come if there is disorder or violence or something associated with it.
“They are not going to come to every phone call that someone is not wearing a mask.
“It will just as we do now with Covid, the police work on the four Es so they engage people, they encourage people, they educate people and they enforce – that may not be the right order – but they will still be doing that.”
A police officer in London has also relayed this information, as police officers have bigger issues to tackle than those not wearing masks in a shop. Forces are also apparently still waiting to hear what the Polices involvement in the new guidelines are, and how forces can enforce them.
Detective chief superintendent Stephen Clayman, who is in charge of the police force in Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge, told the Barking and Dagenham Post: “In my view it is simply not a priority for us clearly but of course we will deal with it when we need to.
“At the moment we have got to concentrate on more pressing things around crime.
“We will deal with it exactly the same way, I suspect, as we did with the other Covid rules – around encouraging and explaining. The fine is the last thing we do if we have to.
“I can’t see us being any different because this is for people’s wellbeing ultimately. This is to help them and about protecting other people. But I don’t envisage we will be patrolling the aisles of Tesco.”
It’s believed from the information we’ve got so far that there will be little intervention from the police, as it’s difficult to have police in stores dedicating precious time to giving out fines to the public. A policing body has also confirmed that police will only fine and enforce as a “last resort.”
