DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – Governor DeWine announced a new Retail Compliance dashboard this week, and according to the website, it’s a tool that will help keep businesses both safe and open.
Weekly, members of the Retail Compliance Unit from the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation will make inspections and log them into the dashboard. The focus of these inspections is facial coverings and social distancing.
Businesses will get a warning for one violation. Repeat violations mean they will be shut down for 24 hours to allow COVID droplets to dissipate.
For local store Heart Mercantile, this won’t be a problem.
“We’re not really that worried about it considering we follow all protocols possibly better than others and we’re very strict on our capacity,” said Tailor Curtis, social media manager with Heart Mercantile.
But shutting down for businesses could be difficult to recover from.
“It would be devastating. This year has already been a hit to most small businesses and to not be able to open doors would be very hard,” said Curtis.
Curtis says at Heart Mercantile, most visitors and customers are understanding and observe the rules. However, they are quick to offer alternatives if there are any complaints about wearing a mask and social distancing in their store.
“We just say ‘You’re always welcome to shop online and we can ship it to you,'” said Curtis.
Dan Suffoletto with Dayton Montgomery County Public Health says if anyone sees stores and businesses not observing mask mandates and social distancing guidelines, they should be reported to the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation and not the public health department.