Not long ago, New Yorkers were required to wear a face mask if they wanted to enter a store.
In fact, it was last October that Adams demanded people wear masks in stores. Just five months ago.
But Mayor Eric Adams has now said the city's shopkeepers should adopt the opposite approach: People who refuse to pull down their mask when they first come into a store should be barred, in case they plan to rob the place.
"We are putting out a clear call to all of our shops, do not allow people to enter the store without taking off their face mask," the mayor said in a radio interview on 1010 WINS on Monday. "And then once they're inside, they can continue to wear it if they so desire to do so."
The mayor made the suggestion, which an aide to Mr. Adams said is not a legal requirement or even a new idea, at a time when crime appears to be declining. The city has seen reduced rates of crime across most categories, from murder to petit larceny, for the first two months of 2023 compared with the same period last year, Police Department data shows.
The New York Times has two agendas: Keep people masked forever, and pretend that crime is not a problem. So they now pretend that two months of declining crime stats is enough to say the crime wave is over, they pretend that people aren't simply reporting crime less frequently because they know cops often don't even bother making reports any longer, and they pretend that crime rates do not remain hugely elevated above the pre-BLM Riots level.
But theft has been a harder problem to address, and concerns over robberies and shoplifting persist. The problem was underscored over the weekend by the shooting death of a 67-year-old deli employee in Manhattan, who was killed on Friday night by a robber wearing a dark face mask and a white, full-body Tyvek suit.
The mayor referred to that killing in a second news media appearance on Monday.
"Let's be clear, some of these characters going into stores that are wearing their mask, they're not doing it because they're afraid of the pandemic, they're doing it because they're afraid of the police," the mayor said in a television interview with PIX 11. "We need to stop allowing them to exploit the safety of the pandemic by wearing masks, committing crimes."
Let's get back to pretending crime isn't a problem, huh?
Despite the wide-ranging recent decline in crime [over two months!], the number of robberies fell by only 2 percent, city data shows. And the number of petit larcenies -- the theft of items whose value is low, such as those typically taken in a shoplifting -- increased by about 5 percent compared with the same period last year.
Requiring shoppers to briefly drop their face masks would allow security cameras to get a clear view of a shopper's face, the mayor said. And if a shopper refused to comply, Mr. Adams said store employees would know to keep an eye on them because "if someone is violating the basic rules, they may be there to violate a substantial rule as to commit a crime."
...
Chief Maddrey said New Yorkers should think of dropping their masks as "a peace offering" and "a sign of safety for store workers."
"When we walk in, we should take down our masks," the chief said. "We should let them know that they're not in any danger, any harm, that we're customers, we're here to help them."
So New York City is obviously now very serious about making crime not pay.
Right?
NYC will pay 300 Black Lives Matter protesters $21,500 EACH after they were wrongly kettled, zip-tied and hit with batons and pepper-spray during 2020 Bronx demonstration in riot-hit city days after George Floyd's murder
Protesters took to the streets following the police-involved killing in Minneapolis
Officers wielding batons restrained hundreds for violating a citywide curfew
If the settlement is approved, it would be one of the highest ever awarded per person in a class action case for mass arrests
By Melissa Koenig For Dailymail.Com
New York City has agreed to pay more than 300 Black Lives Matter protesters $21,500 each after they were zip-tied, hit with batons and pepper-sprayed during a 2020 demonstration.
"Demonstration."
The protesters took to the streets on June 4, 2020, to protest the police-involved murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis 10 days earlier, when they say members of the New York Police Department boxed them in and prevented them from leaving in a practice known as 'kettling.'
Officers wielding batons then swung at the protesters and hit them with pepper spray, before restraining hundreds of the demonstrators with plastic zip ties for violating a citywide curfew.
Oh wait I thought they were wrongly arrested, now I find out they were violating a curfew.
If a judge approves the settlement filed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, the New York Times reports, it would be one of the highest ever awarded per person in a class action case for mass arrests.
In total, the city could spend between $4million to $6million on the settlement.
And why was there a curfew in the first place?
...
But the kettling strategy was broadly defended at the time by Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, who said it was needed because the protesters were defying curfews set after looters ransacked parts of Manhattan.
Shea also claimed the Bronx protest was organized by 'outside agitators,' and de Blasio said, 'There was a specific pre-announced threat of violence, and then people appeared at the protest with weapons and gasoline.
Did I mention that some crime stats had declined for a whole two months in a row -- in a row! -- and that has nothing at all to do with citizens simply no longer calling the police for most crimes because they know crime has been decriminalized?