‘They blame us’: Kansas City business employees take front lines on mask enforcement

It has been a week since Kansas City’s mask mandate went into effect and the health department has already received 119 complaints related to lack of mask compliance.

Seeing someone wearing a mask around Kansas Citywas rare for a few weeks this summer. People were ready to return to normal lives, leaving their masks behind when heading out the door. That was before the delta variant took hold of the region; before cases and hospitalizations went up. However, for some, that didn’t make the idea of masking again easier.

When local business owners heard about the mandate, which took effect Aug. 2, they were not thrilled knowing their staffs would be on the front lines, tasked with enforcing it. They were concerned about being reported and having to deal with all that comes with the mandate — again.

Déjà vu has been a common refrain — buying masks in large quantities to provide to clients, asking them to put them on before entering their premises and possibly losing some customers who don’t want to comply with the rule.

Henry Service, who owns the Historic Lincoln Building at 18th and Vine, said he knows his staff will have to deal with people who don’t want to wear masks. Even when employees try to deal with the situation calmly not everyone listens to them, he said.

“The way the country is now, people take it as a personal attack if you’re asking them to wear a mask,” Service said. “And so they react very poorly when you ask them to comply with the law.”

The mandate requires that individuals wear masks at indoor public spaces where social distancing cannot be maintained regardless of vaccination status. It applies to those over the age of 5 with a few exemptions.

Non-compliance with mask requirements can be reported at covidviolations@kcmo.org or by calling 311 according to the Kansas City Health Department website. Service worries that his business will end up being reported because of people who choose not to wear a mask inside.

“It’s just unfortunate because businesses have to take the brunt for people who want to act irresponsibly,” Service said.

The reports received by the health department so far are largely from people who are concerned about businesses not enforcing the mandate, according to Morgan Said, spokesperson for the mayor’s office.

“The Health Department has begun following up with each of these establishments,” she said.

To avoid going through that “never ending battle” again, Jeff Edmundson, co-owner of Hamburger Mary’s and Woody’s KC, opted to require all customers be vaccinated. There are a handful of bars in the Kansas City area requiring customers show proof of vaccination before entering.

Per the mandate, if everyone in a room has been fully vaccinated, masks are not required.

“If you have an unruly guest that comes in, and the health department comes in, and they see that, they blame us, they don’t blame the guests,” Edmundson said. “And so it just becomes a ridiculous battle between our customers and our servers and our managers just trying to enforce the mask mandate.”

Edmundson said they had been reported twice and cited once by the health department due to the first mask mandate. If they were cited again, Edmundson said he was told, they could possibly lose their license.

Another option was to reduce capacity so customers would maintain a six feet distance from one another and not have to wear masks.

“I’d rather lose the people who are going to fight us about mask mandates and vaccinations than to have to go down to 50% capacity,” Edmundson said.

While some businesses in the metropolitan area have started requiring vaccines for customers, Shawn Davison, owner of the Level One Game Shop in Rivermarket, said they wouldn’t go that route because it has become a political issue.

“We didn’t really feel comfortable asking people’s vaccination status,” Davison continued. “Because we didn’t really want to open that can of worms.”

Davison never stopped enforcing masks. His staff voted on mask protocols, he said, and they chose to continue wearing masks at the shop. His employees are used to giving out between a thousand and two thousand masks a week, he said, and it has been “worth the expense.”

“So from a business perspective, I don’t know that [the mandate] has necessarily helped or hurt,” Davison said. “From a health perspective, we have had, knock on wood, zero positive tests among our staff, or their immediate families.”

In Service’s experience, the mask mandate could hurt his business, just as it did in the previously, he said.

“It’s going to be horrible for business again,” Service said. “I mean, we’re just now recovering from the old mandate and now we are back. Just as we’re getting back on our feet, we’re going to be having to suffer under the weight of a new mask mandate.”

Although it doesn’t necessarily excite her, Cori Smith, owner of BLK + BRWN bookstore in the Midtown-Westport area, said the mandate makes sense.

“I think it’s definitely something that as a small business owner, that I don’t love the idea of happening, but I think this is like the point where we get to be truly innovative and creative.”

She saw COVID-19 cases rising in the area again and started asking customers to wear masks in her store before the city’s mandate even went into effect. She takes care of her grandparents and lost one to COVID-19 last year so she said she wants to keep them and the community safe.

So far she hasn’t had an issue enforcing the use of masks.

“For the most part, people have been on board, I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback,” Smith said. “A lot of people have reached out to me and just said things like, ‘thank you for taking the initiative to do this.’ I haven’t really heard the other side of it, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 7:58 AM.