Many Santa Fe visitors skip masks
Despite state, local mandates, some from out of town aren’t wearing face coverings while walking around
Public officials and health experts in much of the country are emphasizing people should wear face masks to slow the spread of COVID-19 as the pandemic continues to surge.
The message is stronger in New Mexico: Residents and visitors must wear masks in public places.
But many visitors in Santa Fe — some from states with soaring cases of the illness — still tend to stroll downtown with their faces fully uncovered.
Many have masks, bandanas or other face coverings bound around their necks, ready to pull up for proper use if they enter a store. But they are much more lax with wearing masks outdoors — even in the city’s more crowded tourist areas — despite state and city requirements to wear one.
That could be, in part, because signs encouraging use of face masks haven’t yet been placed around the Plaza. City officials said they should be up this weekend. But downtown hotel and shop workers have been spreading the word about the rules.
Visitors’ reasons vary for not wearing face coverings. “I don’t have contact with anyone,” said Texas visitor Jim Leque, who was sitting on a sidewalk bench at the downtown Sena Plaza with a bandana around his neck.
Brian Davis, visiting from Missouri, was not wearing a mask “because we’re outside,” he said. “When I go into a
store, I wear a mask.”
Rob Hanshaw and Jim Spacone, visitors from Arizona, stood unmasked at the north edge of the Plaza.
“In Arizona, it’s optional,” Hanshaw said.
In a May 15 public health order, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham spelled out the statewide rule: “Masks will be required of everyone in public places, with exceptions for eating, drinking and exercising and medical requirements.”
The Santa Fe City Council approved a measure June 10 requiring everyone in the city over age 15 to wear a mask in most public settings — including while “walking in public where maintaining a distance of six (6) feet between other members of public at all times is not possible.”
Repeat offenders could face a $50 fine.
“Now our goal is to help educate visitors in our code of conduct, alert our guests as to our code of conduct,” Mayor Alan Webber said, adding, “It’s incumbent on all of us to be a good host.”
Jim and Patti Brown and Pam Wallace, visiting from Texas, said they were aware of Lujan Grisham’s mask rule; all three walked along the Plaza with their faces covered.
“Your governor said wear a mask, so we are wearing a mask,” Patti Brown said.
“We’re just being prudent and careful,” Wallace added.
“It’s become second nature to us,” Jim Brown said.
Despite the $50 fine that can be imposed for a second and subsequent violation, there were no officers enforcing the ordinance around the Plaza and its feeder streets on a recent day.
Randy Randall, executive director of Tourism Santa Fe, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, said, “I think we’re guilty of not properly advising people yet. We have new signs ordered.”
By the weekend, Randall expects to have 50 signs up downtown, on Guadalupe Street and at the Railyard urging people to wear masks.
Tourism Santa Fe’s visitors center in the Plaza Galeria has distributed 10,000 free masks since June 10, said Patricia Baros, an information specialist. Many of the masks went to hotels so the workers there could hand them out to guests.
Several downtown store owners said visitors generally cover their faces when they step inside.
Carla Newton, a sales manager at Santa Fe Olive Oil & Balsamic Co., a specialty shop on Don Gaspar Avenue, said most customers come in with masks on. She reminds those who are unmasked to cover up. Most do so without complaint, she said, but a few grumble.
“Nobody has left because they had to wear a mask,” Newton said. “I do see a lot of people walk by on the street without a mask. I believe everybody should be wearing them.”
Staff at Yippee Yi Yo, a San Francisco Street store, said they have watched customers’ opinions about masks evolve since the store reopened.
“When we first opened on May 19, people definitely didn’t want to wear masks,” sales associate Tenaya Montoya said. “In the last week, most people are wearing masks.
“Outdoors, especially when it’s busy, it would be better if they wore them,” she added.
The staff at La Fonda on the Plaza advises guests at check-in to wear masks when out and about. There are several signs throughout the hotel instructing visitors to wear masks and alerting guests that free masks are available at the front desk, hotel board Chairwoman Jenny Kimball said.
“We definitely remind them,” she said. “We’ve been asking [the city] to put signs around the Plaza.”
Heritage Hotels & Resorts, which owns several downtown properties, is gearing up for staggered openings July 1 and July 15.
“It’s going to get very interesting when you get the first guest who says, ‘I’m not wearing a mask,’ ” said Tom McCann, regional vice president of Heritage Hotels. “We are hoping to get guidance from the state.”
Jeff Mahan, president of the Santa Fe Lodgers Association, noted rising coronavirus infections in neighboring states, a more fast-paced loosening of pandemic-related restrictions and different rules when it comes to face coverings.
“Arizona, Colorado and Texas are not aligned with having to wearing masks,” Mahan said. While some guests are easygoing about the rules in Santa Fe and across New Mexico, he added, others are “more challenging.”