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Here's what you need to know about new COVID restrictions in Montgomery County

There have been 1,400 COVID-19 regulation violation complaints in Montgomery County, and with the new restrictions, there could be even more.

BETHESDA, Md. — On Tuesday, Maryland State Police expanded its COVID-19 Compliance and Coordination Center, after Gov. Larry Hogan said in a press conference Monday that additional state troopers would be assigned to local counties. 

At the advice of the Montgomery County Health Executive, Dr. Travis Gayles, County Executive Marc Elrich announced that the county needs to return to Phase 1 guidelines. He said the county is in danger of overwhelming hospitals and argues that "small steps won't bend the curve in the right direction.” 

RELATED: Hogan launches COVID-19 'compliance units,' calls on Marylanders to wear masks, keep distance during the holidays

So what are these new restrictions and what does that mean for your holiday celebrations? WUSA9 spoke to Montgomery County officials to find out.

"Now you will be required to wear a facial covering outdoors when you're with people who are not your immediate family, and you cannot socially distance," Councilmember At-Large Will Jawando said. 

This change makes it so masks must be worn both indoors and outdoors.

Jawando said Montgomery County is also reducing the indoor gathering limit from 25 to 10 and the outdoor gathering limit from 50 to 25.

"For the next several weeks we're trying to do what we can, based on our contact tracing data, to limit the types of activities and encourage our residents to limit these activities and not congregate so that we can get the case count down," Jawando said. 

Gov. Hogan took time during his conference Monday to address complaints that residents had sent in regarding COVID-19 regulation violations. 

Credit: WUSA
A sign asking customers to social distance hangs inside of Bradley Party & Variety in Bethesda on Wednesday.


"Fifty-seven percent of all the complaints that have been registered across the state have been about compliance issues at restaurants, bars and retail businesses," he said. 

Kenny Welch, an environmental health manager with Montgomery County Health and Human Services, said his department has received and investigated 1,400 complaints to date. 

"We always try to educate businesses before we do any type of enforcing," he said. "If it's blatant disregard where they're putting the public at risk, we can suspended licenses if they hold a license with us or we can go to the health officer route and the health officer will order to either reduce or totally suspend the business from operating."

To date, Welch said his department has issued 34 $500 civil citations to businesses, suspended seven restaurant licenses, and issued two 30-day Health Officer Closure Orders. He said those are issued when there is continued failure of compliance by a business after a civil citation and license suspension was previously issued.

RELATED: Montgomery County limits gathering sizes, requires masks outdoors ahead of Thanksgiving holiday

 "First off [you] need to be clear and concise on what the facility is [and] the address of the facility," Welch advised when reporting a violation. "If we get a complaint on the Giant, and we're not able to find out what Giant, currently we don't have staffing to go out to [investigate] all the Giants."

Welch said that time of day, as well as the number of people involved in the violation are also important to convey. If you have pictures or video those are very helpful.

"That way we can address it with the establishment and make sure that they're aware of the situation," he said. "Make sure that they're aware that part of their role is to enforce this on the patrons coming into the facility, not just their employees."

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