Patrons of Portland’s numerous restaurants, bars and stores can now legally go maskless inside public spaces, but many businesses have chosen to continue requiring face coverings.
Amid dropping COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in Maine, the Portland City Council voted 7-2 to scrap the mask requirement on Feb. 7. That repeal went into effect Thursday.
The legal requirement that businesses either mandate face masks indoors or require vaccination cards pushed many businesses to institute COVID-19 protocols for the first time since the onset of COVID vaccines. But it’s the decisions of business owners across the city that will ultimately decide how widespread those protocols become now that they are not legally required.
Several restaurants, bars, stores and other establishments across Congress Street still had “mask requirement” signs Thursday night, though not all seemed as if they were being strictly enforced. Employees could be seen going maskless along with customers from the view of many storefronts.
While restaurants and bars have been at the center of the debate over COVID protocols, they will actually see fewer changes than other venues: exemptions to the rule were allowed when patrons were actively eating or drinking.
But at a location like Casablanca Comics off Congress, most customers wear a mask for their whole time in the store. Rick Lowell, an owner, said that he and the rest of management never needed any convincing from the city.
“People have the choice of either wearing a mask or not shopping with us,” Lowell said. “And that’s their decision.”
Lowell said Casablanca doesn’t plan on changing its coronavirus-based policies, which includes avoiding large congregations of people in the store, until cases significantly decline. The health ramifications are too high to not do so, he said.
The Portland Museum of Art, which sees around 350,000 visitors each year from Maine and across the country, will also continue to require patrons to wear masks.
“We believe it is the best protection against transmission,” spokesperson Graeme Kennedy said. “Even with numbers decreasing, we are keeping it for now as numbers remain high.”
While numerous businesses will continue to require masks or a proof of vaccination — which businesses could ask for as an alternative to a mask requirement — others do plan on ditching the requirements now that the mandate is over.
J’s Oyster on the Old Port said it would no longer ask for proof of vaccination beginning Thursday in light of the city’s COVID restrictions being lifted.
Amy Landry, a board member of Portland Buy Local, a coalition of locally owned businesses, said that businesses across the city had done whatever they could to remain open during a pandemic that has hit small businesses especially hard.
For many, that includes weighing competing interests that can also depend on the type of clientele they serve: residents who gravitate toward businesses that take the dangers of COVID seriously could be alienated by one that doesn’t require masks or vaccine cards.
Conversely, businesses can also cater to people who want to return to normalcy nearly two years into the pandemic. Many such people point out Portland’s high vaccination rate: 93 percent of those age 5 and older in Cumberland County have received at least one shot, according to Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Bubba’s Sulky Lounge, a dance club off Forest Avenue, made a Facebook post advertising that the lounge was going back to the “way life [used] to be,” when the mandate expired on Thursday.
“No mask [has] to be worn. No vaccine records that you have to show,” the post read. “Just proof of age.”
Yet, the role of preventing COVID-19 spread can not be understated in the decision-making of many businesses: It is a significant reason why many national chains continue to require their employees to wear masks in their Portland-based stores as well.
Martin Lodish, who is the finance director and a COVID compliance officer for Portland Stage, said the theater would continue to require attendees to wear a mask as well as show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test.
“Our patrons are sitting in a space next to each other for upwards of two hours,” Lodish said. “We feel it’s our responsibility to be as safe as possible for them.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the requirements at Portland Stage. Attendees must both wear a mask and show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test.