Shoppers must continue to wear masks at City Market after the downtown grocery store reversed course on its policy in order to adhere to Burlington’s requirements.
Management caused a stir when it announced late Friday that it would no longer require shoppers to wear masks over the objections of the union, citing a “rise in altercations” with customers over newly relaxed federal guidelines.
But the City Council’s decision Monday night to keep the city’s mask mandate in place for retail stores and city buildings — at least for now — supersedes the guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday and Gov. Phil Scott the next morning.
“We will, of course, be following (the City Council’s) directive,” City Market General Manager John Tashiro wrote in an email sent to staff Monday night and obtained by VTDigger.
Signs alerting customers that they must wear masks regardless of vaccination status “per the City Council’s order” were posted at the store Tuesday.
Tashiro did not respond to a request for comment from VTDigger.
Tashiro wrote that City Market dropped its mask rules, as allowed by the new CDC guidance, because of a statement issued by Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger late Friday afternoon indicating that the city’s mandate was about to be rescinded.
The mandate, first issued in May 2020, applies to all retail businesses, including grocery stores.
“Beginning today we will not enforce the City’s Emergency Order requiring face coverings for fully vaccinated people, and I have called a Special Meeting of the City Council … in order to rescind the requirement for vaccinated individuals,” Weinberger said in the news release, adding he hoped the action would be “welcome and exciting news.”
But the City Council bucked the mayor’s preferences Monday night. In a 9-2 vote with one abstention, councilors elected to postpone lifting the mask mandate and address the issue at its June 7 meeting, primarily because half of Chittenden County’s 18- to 29-year-old population has not had the chance to become fully vaccinated. In late April, it became one of the last age groups to become eligible to get the vaccine, followed only by children ages 12 and up.
In contrast, about 80% of Chittenden County residents age 30 and above have received at least one shot of the two-dose vaccine.
When the CDC released its new guidance late last week, City Market Union President John Donoghue communicated to City Market leadership that staff were not comfortable lifting the mask requirements. That’s because most of the staff fall into the 18-to-29 age range and some aren’t fully vaccinated yet.
But leadership didn’t consult the union, Donoghue said, before announcing Friday evening that masks would no longer be required, effective Saturday morning.
“We were confused and upset,” he said. He heard complaints from employees and customers about the change in masking policy.
With the mask requirement gone over the weekend, Donoghue said “99.9%” of customers continued to wear masks. But about five or six patrons entered without masks, which he said made the employees who manned the front entrance uncomfortable.
When Tashiro announced last week that the mask requirement would be ending, he said in an all-staff email that the market had seen a “rise in altercations” at the front door in recent days, prompted by shoppers’ understanding of the new CDC guidance.
Donoghue said employees aren’t against moving toward a mask-free world as Burlington residents become more vaccinated and cases decline.
“There is a lot of people who want to get rid of masks in the right way,” Donoghue said. “We just want the time to get everybody vaccinated.”
