Credit: Photo via Kimberly DeFalco

Credit: Photo via Kimberly DeFalco

Despite the threat of an executive order carrying a $500 fine and a civil infraction, the City of Tampa now says zero people were cited for not wearing masks in the city’s “Entertainment Zones” last weekend during Super Bowl 55.

“There were no citations issued to individuals for not wearing masks,” Keith O’Connor, a spokesperson for the City of Tampa, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “We educated and encouraged everyone we came in contact with that were not wearing masks to wear them. In the days leading up to the Super Bowl the city gave out over 200,000 masks and the majority of the people were receptive to this and complied.” 

O’Connor told CL that roughly 40 City of Tampa Code Enforcement officers were out last week from Wednesday, Feb. 3 through Super Bowl Sunday, along with 10-15 code officers from Hillsborough County. However, these officers only gave citations to local businesses for COVID-19 violations, not individuals. In total, 12 citations were handed out to local bars and restaurants during that time period, including just four handed out on Super Bowl Sunday. 

On Jan. 27, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor issued an executive order, which lasts until Feb. 13, requiring individuals to wear masks in the city’s outdoor “Entertainment Districts.” Violator were subject to a possible $500 fine and a nominal civil infraction, said Castor. 

At the time, the mayor did not specify how it would be enforced, and later noted that the order was “in contrast” to one issued last year from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, which prohibits cities from fining individuals for ignoring local pandemic restrictions. She also added that penalties were meant as a “last resort.” 

Adding to this, last Sunday, Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan told the Tampa Bay Times that he doesn’t want his officers to be “the mask police so to speak. We will if we have to.” 

Well, it would appear that no one was “the mask police.” 


Since the Super Bowl, literally thousands of photos and videos showed hoards of maskless people crammed together in Tampa's "Entertainment Zones," like SoHo and Ybor City, oftentimes near maskless police officers. 

When asked why no citations were given to individuals who ignored Castor's mandate, O’Connor said masks are a "personal responsibility." 

“The goal from the beginning was to get compliance from as many people as possible and not to cite people,” said O’Connor. “The citation route was reserved as a last resort and like I said we were well received from the public as the vast majority complied with our requests.  The wearing of the mask is a personal responsibility and of course we could not be everywhere all of the time.”

Speaking at a press conference Monday, Castor also said she believed the majority of people were wearing masks, and stated that “the media can always find examples of bad behavior.”


RELATED: Everything we saw in Ybor City following the Bucs Super Bowl win

But medical experts disagree. In an email to CL, Dr. Jay Wolfson, a senior associate dean of the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida and an expert that joined Castor at a previous Super Bowl press conference, said “I saw what you saw.” 

Wolfson added that everyone partying without masks knew the rules, but that human behavior took over. “…for most, it will not be consequential,” he said before warning of the super-spreader potential of Super Bowl weekend’s events.

“…we had tens of thousands of out of state visitors, bringing with them whatever they may have acquired—and they will be taking whatever they might pick up here back to Kansas City and elsewhere in the U.S.," wrote Wolfson. "And everybody participated in the joyous celebrations—many in large groups, in close quarters (even outdoors) cheering, yelling, singing—without masks and no social distancing.”

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This article appears in Feb 11-17, 2021.

Colin Wolf has been working with weekly newspapers since 2007 and has been the Digital Editor for Creative Loafing Tampa since 2019. He is also the Director of Digital Content Strategy for CL's parent...