It took just hours at the McMenamins Bagdad Theater & Pub for the confusion to set in over new mask guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – a scenario playing out at other restaurants and retailers struggling to align their businesses with the latest rules.
Rebecca Boyle, a manager at the Bagdad in Southeast Portland, said she told her staff on Friday to allow fully vaccinated patrons to go without masks – on a good faith basis.
By Friday night, she put the brakes on, having learned that the Oregon Health Authority will issue written directions in coming days.
The whipsaw was just another in a year of turnabouts as restaurants have gone from being closed, to takeout only, to outdoor dining only, to indoor dining, then back to outdoor only, then back to indoor … and so it goes.
“We just want to keep staff and customers safe and comfortable,” Boyle said. “We knew this would be coming eventually. But the idea of people running around without masks freaks people out. We haven’t all had a chance to get a vaccine.”
The CDC on Thursday abruptly changed its policy on mask-wearing, saying that fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks or physically distance “except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.”
Gov. Kate Brown said the Oregon Health Authority will soon provide updated guidance, but in the meantime she announced that fully vaccinated Oregonians no longer need to wear masks in public settings with a few exceptions, including at hospitals, health-care clinics, jails and prisons, long-term care facilities and when riding on buses, trains, planes or waiting in an airport.
On Friday, Dean Sidelinger, the state epidemiologist, said Oregon businesses that choose to offer mask-free shopping for those fully vaccinated will likely be required to inspect each customer’s vaccination card and check the dates of individual shots.
Beyond safety considerations, that may be the most fraught issue for businesses -- that they’ll be asked to become the vaccination police.
For many, the lifting of mask restrictions is profoundly good news, the clearest sign of the economic reawakening to come after a year of semi-hibernation and commercial deprivation. But for some retailers and restaurateurs, the seeming good news this week is accompanied by uncertainty, and a sense the state may leave them in an untenable situation.
Boyle said she’s not going to be checking customers vaccine cards at the door to ensure they’ve gotten their shots.
“Can you even ask that? It’s a HIPAA thing,” she said, referring to the federal law intended to protect sensitive health information from being disclosed without a person’s consent or knowledge. “You can’t even ask for someone’s papers for a service dog.”
That was a common sentiment at a sampling of businesses Saturday. (Sidelinger said Friday if customers voluntarily answer, it is not a privacy violation.)
Terry and Jodi Smoke, owners of the Troutdale General Store on East Historic Columbia River Highway, were operating their ice cream parlor and confectionary shop without masks and said they had no problem with customers going maskless. The Smokes said they’re fully vaccinated themselves.
“I don’t want people to feel uncomfortable,” said Terry Smoke. “If you want to wear a mask, fine, but I’m done. It’s up to the customer. I trust them. If they ask if they need to be vaccinated (to go maskless), I say yes, but I’m going to believe people will be honest about it. That’s the only way we’re going to get through this.”
Outside, Celine Fitzmaurice of Portland was eating an ice cream cone with her husband on the way back from a nearby hike.
“Personally I think the CDC took too big of a leap,” she said. “I’m thrilled to be vaccinated, but the shift is so dramatic. I’m still worried about children and what impact this has on service workers. If there had been another ice cream store nearby where the owners were wearing masks, I might have gone there.”
While vaccines have been approved for 12-year-olds and up, no approval has been given for younger children yet.
A few doors down, Cindi Becker, a longtime employee at Celebrate Me Home, pointed out the sign by the register when asked what the home decorating store was contemplating about masking.
“Masks Are Still Required Here!” it read. Underneath was an explanation of the recent CDC and state changes and a highlighted section that explained the store’s current policy: “Some businesses may prefer to simply continue operating under the current guidance for now, rather than worrying about verifying vaccination status, and that’s fine.”
The detailed explanation of the mask policy at Celebrate Me Home in Troutdale.
Becker said most customers are fine with that approach, but she did have a maskless woman come in Friday, announce that she was fully vaccinated and then leave when Becker politely handed her a mask.
“She said we were going to lose a customer, threw the mask on the floor and walked out,” Becker said.
But Becker said she has no plans to post an employee at the door to look at vaccination cards.
Mikaela Layton, co-owner of the nearby Self Indulgence antique store, said confusion was a common theme up and down the shopping strip.
“It would have been nice to have a clear line (from state officials),” she said. “It’s all gray areas.”
Troutdale attracts a lot of shoppers from Vancouver and Battle Ground who may be operating under different state and county rules and have different takes on the safety of vaccines, she said.
Nevertheless, she said, she feels asking customers for their vaccine status would be an invasion of privacy.
Barbara Bird, a Washington resident shopping for her new grandchild at the nearby Columbia Gorge Outlets, agreed wholeheartedly.
She has no problem wearing a mask when she goes into stores. It’s up to individual businesses to make that call, she said. But she and her husband don’t intend to get vaccinated, and the idea of having to present her papers before shopping is offensive.
“What?” she asked. “Are we living in a communist country?”
Back in Southeast Portland on Hawthorne Boulevard, staff at ORO jewelry store said they were exhausted by the last year of acting as the hand sanitizer police for customers who want to touch jewelry.
The prospect of regulating mask use by checking the vaccine status of customers seems implausible at best, so the store is sticking with its current policy requiring masks until it’s clear Oregon has reached a new place in the pandemic.
Up the street at Fred’s Sound of Music, store manager Bill White said the stereo shop reopened by appointment-only after being closed for three months last spring, and people who come in are asked if they have a fever.
Business has been decent, White said, but the store has no intention of going back to regular retail right away.
The CDC’s decision caught him off-guard, he said. He’s waiting for the state guidelines and worried that politics, not science, are driving the decision.
“Whammo on Thursday,” he said of the new federal guidance. “I know it’s what people want to hear, but I don’t know if it’s what I want to do.”
-- Ted Sickinger; tsickinger@oregonian.com; 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger