The leader of Labour-run Nottingham City Council, Neghat Khan, said residents had felt intimidated when they saw people wearing balaclavas, skeleton masks or other face coverings without a legitimate reason.
“Our residents should be able to live, work and spend time in Nottingham without feeling frightened or unsafe,” Khan previously told the BBC.
“That is why we are taking decisive action and becoming one of the first cities in the country to introduce a restriction of this kind.”
Khan told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) failure to cooperate with the ban “is a criminal offence”, and added: “You could be arrested for it and taken to court.
“Hopefully by having this ban now in place, trouble causers will think to not go into the city centre.”
A public consultation on a face coverings ban found the wearing of them “contributes to feelings of intimidation and fear, particularly when worn by groups involved in anti-social behaviour, disorder, criminal damage, theft, nuisance riding of e-bikes and e-scooters, or other activities causing harassment, alarm or distress”.
When asked about how the ban would be effectively enforced, Labour councillor Matt Shannon, executive member for community protection, neighbourhoods and equalities, said: “The other thing is that, which we are talking to the police about with Operation Reclaim, external, we are targeting drug networks that are operating in and around the city, and again you will probably find that, if people do continue to wear these masks, it then gives [the police] a reason to stop them and then discover whether they are, for example, transporting drugs or the like.”
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