Illinois businesses must ensure their employees and customers wear a face mask or cloth covering their noses and mouths when on the business’s properties, or face up to a $2,500 fine under the new rule aimed at slowing the recent steady spread of COVID-19 throughout the state.

Under the strengthened emergency rule, which was recently approved by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules or JCAR, a 12-member bipartisan legislative oversight committee, businesses will be given basically two warnings before being cited for a class A misdemeanor and subject to a fine ranging from $75-$2,500. Businesses also must cooperate with investigations of COVID-19 cases conducted by the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and local health departments.

Anyone over the age of two is required to wear a mask when in public and unable to maintain six feet of social distance. Additionally, businesses must post signs spelling out mask-wearing requirements, offering customers and employees face coverings and asking them to leave if they refuse to wear it.

Masks can be taken off while eating or drinking, outdoors when social distancing is maintained or while playing musical instruments.

Illinois’ daily average number of new coronavirus cases in recent weeks has climbed steadily, returning to levels that are more than halfway back to where the state’s metrics were when the virus appeared to peak in the state in early May.

The new emergency rule gives the IDPH, local health departments and law enforcement additional and enhanced authority to enforce the mandated masking and social distancing requirements.