Specialty food retailers around the country appear to have been largely immune to the reported confusion around mask-wearing policies following the new guidance released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Several operators reached by SFA News Daily said they continue to require masks to be worn by both customers and employees, in accordance with their state and laws, despite the CDC’s announcement that it was no longer recommending that masks need to be worn by people who have been fully vaccinated.
The abrupt change in the CDC’s stance, which came as infection rates have declined sharply around most of the country, prompted several large food retailers, including Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Costco, and others, to drop their mask mandates for vaccinated customers and employees, except where local regulations continue to require masks.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union expressed concern about the new guidance, citing the safety of workers, and some retailers reportedly took heat from customers on both sides of the issue. Eater reported that New York City grocery retailer Morton Williams waged a back-and-forth public relations battle after relaxing its mask guidelines, while other New York City specialty retailers, including Westside Market, Citarella, and Zabar’s, are all maintaining their mask requirements.
Other retailers around the country said they are looking forward to relaxing their own mask requirements as local laws allow it.
“We pretty much follow the rules,” said Robert Sickles, owner of Sickles Market, which operates specialty food stores in Red Bank and Little Silver, New Jersey. “I think that’s a good way to operate, and your customers ultimately understand.”
Sickles requires both customers and employees to wear masks at all times when indoors, but people are free to remove them when they are in the retailer’s outdoor garden center, he said. The retailer also has outdoor seating at its Red Bank store, where customers can bring food from the store’s cafe.
When the CDC first announced that it was relaxing its mask-wearing guidance, a few customers voiced their opposition to the retailer’s policy of continuing to require masks, Sickles said, but he noted that even those customers opposed to mask-wearing can generally be won over with the argument that the stores are abiding by state laws.
“We don’t want to be the vaccination police,” he said. “Sometimes it’s even hard to tell people that they can’t have their dog in here.”
Most customers have become so used to wearing masks that it’s no longer an issue, he said.
Some specialty retailers said they have changed their mask-wearing policies to conform with CDC guidance and state regulations.
At Frankenmuth Cheese Haus in Frankenmuth, Michigan, customers are no longer required to wear a mask inside the store if they have been fully vaccinated, said Jan Shurtz, store manager.
“It’s on the honor system,” she said. “They are not supposed to come in without a mask on until they have been totally vaccinated. However, we are not enforcing it at all.”
Michigan, which has recently bounced back from one of the most severe COVID-19 outbreaks in the country, followed the CDC guidance in exempting fully vaccinated people from mask requirements.
Shurtz said the retailer hasn’t received any negative feedback about relaxing its mask policy. All employees must still wear a mask inside the store, she said.
In neighboring Ohio, Hyde Park Gourmet Food & Wine in Cincinnati continues to require both employees and customers to wear a mask, said Evelyn Ignatow, owner of the specialty shop, which is known for its carefully curated assortment of wine, cheese, chocolate, and other gourmet foods.
“We don’t know who’s been vaccinated and who hasn’t,” she said, so the retailer is maintaining its mask policy for the time being “just to keep everything safe in a small location.”
“Our shoppers just come in here for certain things, and frankly, I don’t think they have a problem at all wearing a mask,” Ignatow said.
She said the retailer has loosened its restrictions on how many customers can be in the store at any one time, however. As a very small store, Hyde Park hasn’t had the luxury of being able to admit large groups of people and still maintain social distancing, she explained.
Ignatow said she knows of one couple who objected to not being allowed inside the store to prevent crowding, but most customers have not objected to the store’s rules.
“We know our customers by name, and I think they appreciate us even more that we are watching out for them,” she said.
If current trends continue, the retailer may begin to loosen its mask-wearing policies as well, Ignatow said.
“We’ll just keep listening to the news and the board of health, and go from there,” she said.
Brittany Hartwell, store director at Palace Market in Point Reyes Station, California, said her store would likely “go with the science and the state” in allowing both workers and customers to roam the store mask-free if they choose to do so after June 15, when California has said it will remove almost all remaining pandemic-related restrictions.
“We're fortunate in that 98 percent of our team chose to get vaccinated, so we feel confident that we have otherwise protected ourselves to the best of our abilities,” she said.
The store’s plan to begin allowing people to shed their masks is fully supported by employees, Hartwell said. Many workers said they will likely continue wearing masks on the store floor, but remove them in more controlled environments such as the office or kitchen.
She said Palace Market’s leadership team has been monitoring consumer reactions to various mask policies around the country.
“The silver lining of being the last state to lose masks is we get at least a month to learn from the triumphs and pain points of others,” Hartwell said.
Related: Stores Struggle to Enforce Mask Policies; UFCW Asks for Clarification on Mask Policy.
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