Leelanau restaurants face the dilemma: require vaccines, or masks?

“Everyone on our team is vaccinated, said Martha Ryan, owner and chef of Martha’s Leelanau Table in Suttons Bay. “If we are all not going to wear masks then we must all be vaccinated.

By Madeleine Hill Vedel

Sun contributor

To say that last year was rough for our local hospitality industry is to severely understate the case. Restaurants and caterers have had to retrain staff, let go many, move most of their seating (when possible) outside, reduce indoor capacity, and limit contact between staff and clients to the bare minimum. Some shifted to purely take-out. Some had to close. For caterers, a summer that promised 20-30 events was reduced to two. Some clients chose food trucks instead of the originally requested sit-down, full-service meal.

We are now in the middle of the 2021 tourist season. Leelanau County is packed with vacationers, and summer is in full swing. The Centers for Disease Control guidelines as of June 15 stated that masks were no longer required for fully vaccinated individuals, except in K-12 schools, public transit, healthcare settings, jails and homeless shelters, where masks continue to be required for everyone, regardless of vaccination status. As late as last month, masks were still required of unvaccinated individuals in indoor public settings and businesses such as retail, restaurants, theaters, family entertainment centers, meetings, state and local government offices serving the public.

Specifically for businesses, venue operators and hosts:

In settings where masks are required only for unvaccinated individuals, businesses, venue operators or hosts may choose to:

* Provide information to all patrons, guests and attendees regarding vaccination requirements and allow vaccinated individuals to self-attest that they are in compliance prior to entry.

* Implement vaccine verification to determine whether individuals are required to wear a mask.

* Require all patrons to wear masks.

* No person can be prevented from wearing a mask as a condition of participation in an activity or entry into a business.

Subsequently, on June 22, the State of Michigan lifted the statewide requirement to wear a face mask in most settings, with the caveat that local health departments, establishments, sports organizers, and school districts may have additional rules that must be followed. Beginning July 1, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services lifted all broad epidemic orders.

After a year of mandatory masks, six-foot distances between tables and contactless offerings, there is an effusive tingling of freedom, undercut by a layer of uncertainty on the menu.

In response to the question, “what is your stance on employee vaccination?”, I encountered three primary responses: insist that all employees be vaccinated; hire unvaccinated employees who agree to wear a mask; leave this decision to the individual as the state has now adjusted its mask stance to allow all to go unmasked indoors, no matter their vaccination status.

“Everyone on our team is vaccinated, said Martha Ryan, owner and chef of Martha’s Leelanau Table in Suttons Bay. “If we are all not going to wear masks then we must all be vaccinated. And if they [a potential employee] is not, they get vaccinated to work here. And I give them $100 bonus when they show me their vaccination card.”

Before making this decision, Martha did her homework confirming that as an employer she could make COVID-19 vaccination a requirement for working in her establishment.

“We all work very closely together,” she added. “Everybody should be vaccinated. Leelanau County is over 70 percent vaccinated. We’ve been really careful here, and that’s why so few have died from COVID in Leelanau County. It just makes sense to continue doing so.”

Up in Northport, owner Eric Allchin of The Tribune has opened his dining room after being closed through most of the pandemic, “Our entire staff is fully vaccinated,” he said. “We too are requiring that they are to work. We waited to open [the dining room] until the entire staff felt comfortable with that.”

Mimi Heberlein of The Willowbrook, the Northport event venue shared, “We’re at this point where the Governor says the restrictions are lifted. We don’t have to wear masks. It’s making it really challenging. We’re going on people’s honor.

“What we are doing now—we’ve had to adapt a bit or we’re not going to have anyone here serving—is we’ve asked that those who are not vaccinated wear a mask. Same things are happening with our weddings. This is a stand we are trying to take. Come prepared to interact with human beings. The crisis of the day is that unvaccinated people could carry the virus—[think of it] like wearing a uniform. This is the same as gloves for food preppers.”

Kristy Versnyder, owner of Island Thyme Catering, epitomized the dilemma for so many. Her core team is vaccinated, but she needs seasonal gig workers, willing to work from one to 26 days this summer to staff her upcoming events. She would prefer experienced servers and kitchen help, as would her colleagues. But she is fighting the national trend of depletion of individuals willing to work these jobs, whether due to having received the extra COVID unemployment benefits, or having found jobs in other industries.

“All my clients are from out of state,” Versnyder said. “There’s one event with over 40 countries represented. We plan to remain masked at all events. If I have a fully vaccinated team working then we might go without masks. [For those who aren’t vaccinated], I don’t want to put a scarlet letter on a team member. I have compassion for that.”

As the summer schedule filled, Versnyder sent an email to former staff requesting they share their vaccination status, as she is working with venues and clients who demand this. As of this writing, she still has events that are not fully staffed, even though she is paying $25 an hour, which is higher than previous years.

Deferring to state and CDC policies, Nic Theisen, owner with his wife Sara and colleagues Gary and Allison Jonas of Farm Club on Route 641 said, “Up till recently 100 percent of our staff was vaccinated. A new hire isn’t. If they are unvaccinated they wear a mask. If they’re vaccinated they don’t. We followed the state when it was very strict. We’ll follow them when it’s not. These are educated decisions so that’s what we’re following.”

“It was difficult to stop wearing masks,” Theisen continued. “But why would I be a stickler when it was draconian, and why not when it’s lighter. We had staff that didn’t like the mask thing, but they all followed it. We’re following the guidelines. That’s what our stance is.”

Across the county, restauranteurs and caterers are confronting this most personal, but also universal decision. It is not without precedent to require vaccination. As a consequence of a 1901 smallpox epidemic in the Northeast, the Boston and Cambridge boards of health ordered all residents to be vaccinated. Some refused, claiming the order violated their personal liberties under the Constitution.

The fight went all the way to the Supreme Court, “who issued the landmark 1905 ruling that legitimized the government’s authority to “reasonably” infringe upon personal freedoms during a public health crisis by issuing a fine to those who refused vaccination.”

The bottom line is that, according to the federal agency that enforces workplace discrimination laws, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, companies are permitted to request employees to be/get vaccinated. They are not violating HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) protections in doing so. However, vaccine mandates must abide by the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and as such accommodate employees with health concerns like allergies and keep that information confidential.

Speaking for her restaurant, and widely for many colleagues, Amy Murphy, co-owner with her husband Kevin of the New Bohemian Café in Northport writes: “Being in the middle of the vaccination conversation is uncomfortable at best. We are eager to get back to talking about coffee and food instead of public health policy. As it stands now, we feel very grateful that the vaccine is so effective, and that we are in one of the places that has a very high rate of vaccination.”

“None of this is easy, and there’s just a lot behind everyone’s decisions. We will continue to use physical interventions to reduce risks. We’ll keep watching and learning, and if the numbers and infection rates start to go back up, we will tighten our policies accordingly.”