Llano County is among the counties that are requiring residents to wear a mask when in public spaces. The order applies to counties with at least 20 COVID-19 cases.

As of July 6, the county’s health authority reported 50 positive COVID-19 cases, 14 of them in Horseshoe Bay. Thirty-one people have recovered and no deaths have been reported.

So far, the city’s police department has not had to do much enforcement of the governor’s order. “For the most part, we have seen voluntary compliance,” said HSB Police Chief Rocky Wardlow.

The incidents he has heard about were more like accidents. “A person had a mask in their hand and simply forgot to put it on,” Wardlow said. “In another instance not involving the police department, I was told a person had entered a business and accidentally left the mask in their vehicle. The business stopped them at the door and the person returned to the vehicle to retrieve the mask.”

The HSB Police Department will issue only verbal warnings to violators of the mask order, because that is all the law will allow. “The order requires that a person first be given a warning, which can be either verbal or written, but it also states that law enforcement cannot detain, arrest, or confine someone for a violation of the order,” Wardlow said. “This means if we see someone in public who is in violation and not covered by an exception, we can only give a verbal warning without it being considered ‘detained’ under the law.”

Wardlow said that police could detain a person for any other violations of state law or a city ordinance, but not for the mask offense in itself.

Before a mask violation case goes further into the legal system, police would have to prove that a person was previously warned, and then an officer can issue a summons to HSB’s municipal court, Wardlow said.

“Whatever action is taken for the extraneous offense is considered a separate issue,” he said.

Wardlow said that officers will be enforcing the order within its guidelines. “We have a tremendous daily influx of people into the city from outside areas who are workers, contractors, part-time residents, visitors, guests and tourists. Enforcing the order (will) better protect residents of this community.”

According to Governor Greg Abbott’s Executive Order GA-29, “Every person in Texas shall wear a face covering over the nose and mouth when inside a commercial entity or other building or space open to the public, or when in an outdoor public space, wherever it is not feasible to maintain six feet of social distancing from another person not in the same household,” with exceptions for children younger than 10 years old and people with health conditions that preclude the wearing of a mask, among other exceptions.

GA-29 also amends Executive Order GA-28, so that now gatherings of only 10 people are allowed, as opposed to 100.