In June 2022, New York City mayor Eric Adams lifted the last of the city’s masking mandates — the one targeting its toddlers. For children between the ages of two and four, masking in schools and day-care centers would henceforth be optional. And yet, Adams still urged all New Yorkers to exercise that option. “We still strongly recommend that New Yorkers of all ages continue to wear masks indoors,” a statement from the mayor’s office read. Adams has since had a change of heart. It’s not just the health-conscious who took his advice but aspiring bandits, too. It turns out that masking guidelines also facilitate lawlessness.
During a Monday morning interview on 1010 WINS, as the New York Post’s Bernadette Hogan reported, Adams lamented that even grudging tolerance for masking as an individual preference contributes to rising property-crime rates. Because “when you see these mask-wearing people, oftentimes it’s not about being fearful of the pandemic,” Adams observed. “It’s fearful of the police catching [them] for their deeds.” He advised proprietors to “not allow people to enter the store without taking off their face mask,” at which point they can evaluate whether a potential customer is a customer and not a shoplifter. Adams’s admonition is already reflected in policy, with the NYPD now advising retailers to deny entry to shoppers who refuse to unmask prior to entry.
Adams has seen the light, but his observation is already passé. As a more than two-year-old piece of local reporting reproduced in Loss Prevention Magazine (yes, it’s a thing) detailed, local law enforcement has long complained about how the “social norm” of “face coverings inside private businesses” has “as a direct result” produced a “substantial increase in retail fraud thefts.” Private businesses have taken the lead where municipal authorities have been slow to act. For example, shoppers at the Beverly Hills location of the clothing store Kitson were informed last August that face masks would no longer be permitted so that employees could “see the faces of the criminals.”
“Think about mask-wearing,” said Cory Lowe, a retail-theft expert at the Loss Prevention Research Council. “Pre-pandemic, would we have ever thought about everyone in a liquor store wearing a mask covering half of their face and allowing them to remain anonymous?” It’s not hard to sympathize with Lowe’s exasperation, which is probably common in his field at a time when the tools of identity concealment have become a badge of honor and a tribal signifier.
“These are people who make a living stealing and reselling,” Lowe added of the organized smash-and-grab crimes that are forcing brick-and-mortar retailers to abandon major American cities. “This is not a one-time opportunistic or need-based robbery.” This is the intuitive conclusion that anyone observing a mob strip a CVS location’s shelves bare would reach. Indeed, those with uncommon powers of discernment likely also concluded years ago that the social norm popularizing face masks helps to make serial retail theft a viable vocation.
New York City came around to these instinctive conclusions. They’re late, but that’s better than never. So what’s everyone else’s excuse?