ST. LOUIS — When Salt + Smoke staff opens the front doors to their newest location at Ballpark Village Monday, they won't require fully vaccinated patrons to wear their masks on the way to their table.
"At this point, we're pretty battle-tested for changing on the fly," co-owner Tom Schmidt said of the barbeque brand's constant pandemic readjustments.
Schmidt said plans for the fifth location — and the business overall — were constantly changed over the past 14 months, even making changes on the day of their soft opening when local leaders approved lifting mask requirements indoors for vaccinated customers.
Schmidt said the barbeque brand caught some heat because they followed local health orders throughout the pandemic.
"Our hosts and managers have been on the front line of enforcing mask mandates too often very kind of upset, vocal, aggressive people," Schmidt said.
Schmidt said the decision to relax their mask policy is just a continuation of their adherence to local guidances, acknowledging they're relying on people to follow the honor system because they can't investigate a customer's vaccination status.
"There’s just no way to track it. And it’s a personal rights violation, medical history violation... really tricky," he said.
Martin Casas says his business, Apotheosis Comics & Lounge, is taking a different approach, keeping the mask requirement in place, with mixed reactions.
"We have had a lot of customers come in over the weekend thanking us for the decision we made," he said, adding not everybody was pleased by the announcement.
"We got a couple of guys that were like 'oh, I'm never gonna shop in your store again.' We got one guy that said 'I've never shopped in your store, and I won't now.' And I'm like 'well, sorry to lose you,'" Casas said of the social media response.
The Missouri Vaccine Dashboard shows 32.8% of Missouri residents have completed vaccination, as of Sunday night. That number drops to 26.6% inside the City of St. Louis.
Those numbers concern Casas.
"Not enough people are vaccinated yet, and we need to make sure that we get those numbers up before we feel safe," Casas said.
Because they attract a young clientele, Casas estimates about 30% of his customers aren't even eligible for a vaccine yet.
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