Nevada man arrested after refusing to wear mask in casino

A Nevada man was arrested for trespassing Sunday after refusing to either leave a Stateline, Nev., casino or put on a mask.

Security asked the man to leave the bar at the Hard Rock if he was not going to don a facial covering, with security eventually taking him into custody for trespassing when he refused to do either, The Record-Courier reported.

The man later told Douglas County sheriff’s deputies “he did not care about the face masks and was not wearing one,” according to the newspaper, citing court documents.

Tahoe Township Justice of the Peace Richard Glasson ordered the man to stay out of Stateline casinos and follow state regulations on mask use as a condition of release, according to The Record-Courier.

The county has 23 known active cases of the virus and 50 recoveries.

The incident comes days after Nevada’s Culinary Union sued several Las Vegas casino operators, saying they have failed to keep casino workers safe and have not properly required customers to wear masks even though they required them for workers, indicating they “recognized the critical importance of mask-wearing.”

However, in spite of “overwhelming evidence of the importance of mandating facial coverings by guests in public areas of casinos and hotels … defendants, along with other casinos and hotels in southern Nevada only ‘encouraged’ guests to wear face masks,” the lawsuit stated.

The incident is also one of several in which people have become belligerent over being asked to wear a mask in a public space, including an incident over the weekend in which a bus driver in Bayonne, France, sustained brain damage after being attacked by several people attempting to get on the bus without masks.