Mayor Says His Private Sector Vaccine Mandate is “Good for Business”

By Yehudit Garmaise

Mayor Bill de Blasio said that his goals of “Educate and Correct” are what ideally shape the enforcement of his private sector vaccine mandate that went into effect today.

“Of course, businesses should expect inspections, as per usual, but with the attitude of: ‘Let’s make sure everything is working for everyone’s health and safety,” the mayor said. “We are not trying to do, ‘Gotcha.’ We are just trying to make sure we keep moving forward.”

As per the vaccine mandate on the city’s Department of Health website, all of the city’s nearly 200,000 businesses are now required to have records on file of all employees’ vaccination status and post visible signs that the businesses are in compliance with the mandate.

Just as the city did with the Key to NYC since August, the mandate that now requires customers to show proof of full vaccination before entering restaurants, fitness centers, and entertainment venues, the mayor said, “We did a lot of education.

“We did a policy of when an inspector shows up, if there is a problem, that inspector talks to the business and says, ‘Hey, here is a problem, let’s correct this. Please confirm you can do that.’ Overwhelmingly the businesses have done that.”

 The mayor said that “there were very few times we had to give a penalty, but we will give a penalty if someone flat out refuses [to comply.]

“Ideally, we would rather avoid penalties. Our goal is to get to a positive outcome.”

The mayor said that the city “has done this work already [with Key to NYC] and found that it did not need to fine,” except in a few cases.

 “If an inspector goes today, and a business says, ‘I absolutely, positively refuse to comply, of course, we are going to fine,” said Mayor de Blasio. “But that is not what we usually find. We usually find businesses that are ready to comply.

“Sometimes [business owners] are not sure about some of the details. Sometimes they need help correcting a situation. If someone refuses, of course, there are penalties. But very, very few people refuse, in our experience in a substantial body of work we already have.”

“Everyone agrees that COVID is not just bad for your health, but bad for business. What would be most devastating is more shutdowns. So, an aggressive action to make sure we do not go back to shutdowns and restrictions is actually very friendly to the needs of business and keeping people employed.”

While the city’s Department of Health will be “playing a crucial role” in inspecting the city’s small businesses for compliance with the vaccination mandate, Dave A. Chokshi, MD, the city’s health commissioner, said that the inspection force will be comprised of many of the city’s agencies, similar to the enforcement related to the Key to NYC.

The private business vaccine mandate will include “dedicated, routine inspections,” but “the most important point is: We seek to work with businesses and business owners so that everyone can come into compliance for the simple reason that vaccination is good for business,” Dr. Chokski said. “It helps to keep our economy open and running and it helps to keep employees and all New Yorkers healthy and out of the hospitals.”