Beaufort County approves face mask requirements. What you need to know
People who live, work or vacation in Beaufort County will have to wear a face mask in public starting on the Fourth of July.
Beaufort County Council approved an ordinance Wednesday evening requiring people in unincorporated parts of the county to wear masks inside all commercial and public buildings.
With Wednesday’s vote, Beaufort County became just the second county in South Carolina to require masks. The first was Dorchester County.
For three and a half hours, council members debated the draft ordinance and made substantial changes to its language. In the end, after a lengthy discussion among council members and Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner, the council voted to remove criminal penalties from the ordinance.
The initial draft ordinance would have penalized violators with a $100 fine or 30 days in jail. Instead, council removed all penalties for individual violators.
“Our whole goal is to educate people,” Chairman Joe Passiment said. “We want to start off with the education. We do not want to do the hammer. If we see over the course of time that nobody is paying attention, we may have to put in penalties, but we don’t want to do that.”
The county’s ordinance came just days after Hilton Head, Bluffton and Beaufort passed similar rules requiring masks. However, these ordinances instituted penalties for violators.
This means that a person can be fined for not wearing a mask within a town or city’s limits, but would not be penalized in unincorporated parts of the county.
The county’s ordinance will go into effect at 11:59 p.m. on July 3 and is effective for 61 days, or until Aug. 31.
The rules also require employees of retail businesses, salons, grocery stores and pharmacies to wear face masks when near the general public or in close proximity to other employees.
The requirement applies to all people using public or commercial transportation and all employees interacting with people in outdoor spaces such as curbside pickup, delivery and service calls.
The only penalties listed in the ordinance are for repeat violations.
Any repeat violations may be declared a nuisance, according to the ordinance, and Beaufort County may revoke a company’s business license if they occur.
Several people or places are exempt from the rules:
▪ Children younger than 2 “or at the discretion of the parent, custodian or guardian”
▪ People who are unable to wear a mask due to age or health condition
▪ Those who are unable to remove a face mask without assistance from others
▪ Anyone who is traveling in a personal vehicle
▪ Anyone who is alone or in the presence of household members in an enclosed space
▪ People who are actively eating or drinking
▪ Child care facilities
▪ Schools
▪ Churches and gyms where social distancing policies are in place
▪ People receiving medical treatments
▪ People actively swimming in an indoor swimming pool
Am I in unincorporated Beaufort County?
Uneven growth in municipalities has resulted in Swiss cheese-like jurisdictions and pockets of unincorporated territory in Beaufort County. This means that some businesses and indoor public spaces will be subject to different rules from their neighbors.
Beaufort County’s public GIS mapping site includes municipal boundaries for the county. Beaufort’s are marked in red on the map.
The mask rules approved by Bluffton are for people and businesses within the town’s limits. Bluffton, however, has many “doughnut holes,” or areas that are not incorporated.
Although a business may have a Bluffton address, it may be in unincorporated Beaufort County. The Walmart Supercenter at Bluffton Road and U.S. 278, for example, is not within town limits.
To find out if you or your business is within the town’s limits, enter your address in the town’s “Am I in Bluffton” application.
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 10:08 PM.
