Masks put ‘us at odds with’ shoppers
Montana town copes with the fallout from local, state decisions
HAMILTON, Mont. — Outside River Rising Bakery sits an older gentleman, his face uncovered. He’s here every morning, greeting customers as he drinks his coffee and reads. Inside, people mill about, waiting to order. A group chats at a corner table.
The employees wear masks, but patrons are not required to. Most don’t. It feels almost normal. As if the pandemic had never happened.
Half a block away in Hamilton, at Big Creek Coffee Roasters, most customers don’t go inside; instead they wait to order at a makeshift to-go window. There are a lot of strollers and Lululemon tights, and most people in the line are wearing a mask. If anyone did go inside, wearing one would be mandatory.
One Montana block, two small businesses — and two different decisions about asking customers to wear masks.
This summer, Gov. Steve Bullock mandated face coverings in public spaces to combat a spike in COVID-19 cases. But the sheriff in Hamilton, backed up by the Ravalli County commissioners, elected not to enforce the order, saying individual rights took priority. That decision left small businesses stuck in the middle of a monthslong national conflict over mask wearing as they try to keep staff safe and their doors open without alienating customers.
For the owner of River Rising, Nicki Ransier, the commissioners’ decision made her life easier: “It kind of took some pressure off of us, because we’re not having that confrontation
with our when they in.”
Before the governor’s order, Ransier asked her staff to wear masks, but a few customers berated her employees — some of whom are in high school — over the decision. One customer told staffers that they were “bending the knee to tyranny” by following Bullock’s order.
Other patrons wanted Ransier to require masks for all and install Plexiglas barriers. She felt she couldn’t please anyone, so she decided her policy would focus on what she could control: employees. She would let customers choose, but ask her 14 workers to wear masks even though it can be hot and miserable.
“We have a lot of older customers,” Ransier said. “And in my heart, I was
customers walk
just like, ‘What if Iwere to get Bob — the man who sits out front every day — or someone sick?’ I would just feel horrible.”
But the commissioners’ move frustrated Randy Lint, the owner of Big Creek Coffee Roasters. He thought the governor’s order would put an end to mask conflicts. Instead, he said, the commissioners’ decision “puts us at odds with customers.”
“Dealing with fallout from stressed customers has been one of the hardest parts of the pandemic,” Lint said.
He’s thankful for the to-go window and the reprieve it offers— at least while the weather is nice. He added a propane heater to extend the outdoor season, but once winter hits and customers come indoors, he knows his policy will be an issue
again. Still, he said, he can’t risk having any of his seven staff members contract COVID-19. If one did, he would have to shut down for two weeks so everyone could quarantine. Lint said he wasn’t sure he could survive that experience emotionally.
“The danger is that it will all crush my spirit,” he said.
It’s a fear based in reality: Down the block, Naps Grill, one of the town’s busiest restaurants, recently chose to close temporarily after several workers tested positive for the coronavirus.
Complicating the choice for business owners and customers alike is that the pandemic has been slow to affect Ravalli County, which is part of the Bitterroot Valley, an approximately 100-mile
strip of southwestern Montana. The county is 2,400 square miles, but it has had just over 300 cases of the coronavirus and four deaths from COVID-19 since March. More than one-quarter of those cases have cropped up in the past week and caused several local schools to shut down for multiple days.
The town, with just under 5,000 residents, is home to Rocky Mountain Laboratories, where researchers are trying to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. It is also the county seat, luring many to shop and do business, and is a gateway to trout streams and other outdoor recreation. That means everyone is mixing on Main Street: white collar, blue collar, wealthy ranchers, scientists, lifelong bartenders, multigeneration residents, tourists, hunters, kayakers, conservatives and liberals.
Most business owners, whatever their politics, keep their social media and public statements neutral. But masks have become a public symbol onto which people imprint their own assumptions.
“It’s quite exhausting,” said Shawn Wathen, a co-owner of Chapter One Book Store, which is kittycorner from Big Creek. “If we could go one day and not have to talk about masks — that would be just quite astonishing.”
Mara Lynn Luther, the other owner, added, “The governor’s order was supposed to handle that for us so that we could focus on staying open as a business, right? And that’s so frustrating.”