U.S. & Canadian Retailers Facing Potential Competing Rights Issue
No mask, no service? Businesses have the right to require masks on customers

Face mask requirements are growing in popularity as retailers beginning to re-open.

Experts agree with remarks Ontario Premier Doug Ford made on Friday, reminding Canadians that companies have the right to ask you to slip on a face covering or seek products and services elsewhere.

"Any business has the right to refuse anyone." Richard Powers says the policy is well within a company's rights.

"The safety of retail workers and staff trumps the customers right to refuse wearing a mask," he said.

"Businesses have a legal responsibility to create a safe working environment and if having people wear masks is a reasonable accommodation, which I think it is, to provide that safe environment, I believe that the retailer can refuse entry to someone who will not don a mask."

"Don't assume that someone who isn't wearing a mask or is wearing something different doesn’t have an actual reason for it," chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said.

"Someone will challenge that on whatever grounds — discrimination perhaps — and that creates a hassle for the retailer and an expense, if they choose to fight it," he said.

Wearing a mask could contribute to an asthma attack for some, she said, while others with autism spectrum disorder may have trouble with sensory processing, as well as tactile, olfactory and nervous-system hypersensitivity that wearing a mask could trigger. "They may have a personal right of action against the owner of that business for denial of service."

“Title III of the ADA requires a business to remove barriers of entry and to provide reasonable accommodations to a guest as long as those reasonable accommodations do not create unreasonable risks of harm or danger to other guests or employees," Barth said. "Their duty of extends not just to the guest with COPD, but to all of their guests and employees.”

Barth said per Texas law, mask policy is legal and enforceable and said to think of mask policies as similar to when restaurants prohibit customers from smoking or requiring a dress code. click2houston.com thestar.com