By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
Private businesses in Arizona are free to require that their workers be vaccinated against Covid, Attorney General Mark Brnovich has concluded.
And Brnovich said companies have the right to make the same demand of customers.
But the attorney general, in a 40-page legal opinion issued Friday, said neither of those rights is absolute. In both cases, the business has to provide “reasonable accommodations” for those who cannot get vaccinated due to a disability. And they must not discriminate against customers who will not get inoculated due to a sincerely held religious belief.
He laid out ways that employers can deal with workers, like staggered schedules. telework assignments and mask requirements.
Brnovich, however, had no real answers for how a grocery store, bar, restaurant, retail outlet or even movie theater could meet their burden to provide a reasonable accommodation, especially as federal law does not require a company to makes changes that would “fundamentally alter” their services.
An aide, for example, said she could not say whether a mom-and-pop grocery store that requires patrons to be vaccinated now would have to provide home delivery for a customer who cannot or will not get vaccinated due to medical or religious reasons.
“We can’t provide legal advice to one specific grocery store or a movie theater,” said press aide Katie Conner.
“It’s not our job to say exactly how they can do it,” she continued. “It’s our job to interpret the law as it’s currently written, not to come up with a policy for them.”
