Minnesota Target Stores To Keep Mask Mandate In Place
Target stores in Minnesota will continue to mandate masks in store, despite new and changing guidelines that were announced on Thursday (May 6th).
For reference, Governor Walz announced a new plan to be rolled out over the next few months. The plan includes loosening of COVID-19 restrictions to slowly roll out over the course of three phases. The end goal is to get at least seventy-percent of Minnesotans vaccinated and end the state mask mandate by the first of July, whichever comes first.
While the state may continue to mandate masks past that point, Target stores in Minnesota will continue to implement their own mask policy on their own. They spoke in a statement to FOX 9 News, confirming this news. FOX 9 reports the store will "continue requiring masks in all stores even if Gov. Tim Walz removes Minnesota’s statewide mask mandate."
As of now, Target has several COVID-19 policies in place and has since the pandemic began last year. Some of their policies include the face mask mandate, as mentioned, along with hand sanitizing stations storewide, social distancing markers and plexiglass at checkout.
They also made other huge changes, like closing for Thanksgiving day and cancelling their popular Black Friday sales event in 2020. They did this to avoid major crowding in their stores and instead, spread out their sales throughout an extended period of time. It was so successful they have already stated they will be doing it again this year.
Despite all these changes amid the pandemic, the corporation is still thriving. In 2020, they had a huge year, as sales grew by the billions.
In March of this year, Target made headlines for announcing they would continue to require masks in store for everyone, even if they had been fully vaccinated.