Californians Are Ignoring Gavin Newsom’s Statewide Mask Mandate

Californians are ignoring Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide mask mandate, which went into effect Wednesday for most indoor spaces, and is meant to prevent a winter surge of coronavirus cases associated with the new Omicron variant of coronavirus.

As Breitbart News reported earlier this week, Newsom exempted San Francisco — where he used to be mayor of the city — and the surrounding counties, because of the high vaccination rate in the region. But others are just ignoring the mandate.

In Los Angeles County, for example, gyms and restaurants are continuing as before. Podcaster and model Jessica Vaugn tweeted her observations from a party in Hollywood on Thursday night, where patrons were ignoring the new mandate:

This is in public at the epicenter of the overlords mandating your kids mask at school. They take my taxes and yours to carry out the agenda. We are not free and this is behind the scenes in Hollywood the day after a state mask mandate. Wake up. pic.twitter.com/OJKbN7ovYH

— Jessica Vaugn (@JessicaVaugn) December 17, 2021

The Sacramento Bee reported that no one can figure out who is responsible for enforcing the mask mandate, and that Newsom says he has “faith” in Californians to enforce his mandate themselves, saying that they would “self-enforce”:

When asked about the lack of enforcement mechanism for the mandate, which went into effect Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he “has faith” in Californians to follow it, but didn’t provide specifics on what would happen if they didn’t.

“I have more faith than you do in the capacity of people to do the right thing. That’s the response,” Newsom told a reporter during a press conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

“I think people are more capable once they’re given the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ to apply themselves…and I think a lot of people will self-enforce and do the right thing.”

Local government officials say the state hasn’t given any guidance on enforcement, and some local authorities say they won’t enforce the state’s order at all.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has previously said he would not enforce vaccine mandates in his county.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.