BRATTLEBORO — The town that spurred state government to allow local pandemic mask mandates is now debating whether to recommend or require proof of vaccination and other precautions in public spaces.
Brattleboro, the first Vermont municipality to adopt an order on face coverings, is following a state law that requires its selectboard to review and, if desired, renew the action every 30 days.
Local leaders who approved the mandate in November affirmed it this month while amending it to allow people to be unmasked while dining, drinking or performing at restaurants, bars and theaters.
That has sparked the five-member selectboard to weigh other actions to combat Covid-19.
“I don’t feel 100% comfortable putting in this exemption and saying nothing about, at the very least, encouraging those venues to require proof of vaccination,” board member Daniel Quipp said. “Unless we’re going back to a shutdown state I don’t see happening, I think it is incumbent upon proprietors of places that serve food and beverages to consider.”
Brattleboro leaders first called for masks to be worn inside public spaces from the spring of 2020 until this past summer, after expressing concern the state was then requiring masks for employees but only recommending them for everyone else.
“Wearing a face covering is an important act we can do in an effort to protect others from an infection that we may not even know we have,” Brattleboro’s original local emergency order read in part.
Brattleboro leaders dropped the mandate in June with the proliferation of vaccines and a decline in Covid cases, then changed their minds in August upon learning of a rise in transmission of the virus, fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant.
But Gov. Phil Scott, having lifted a Covid-19 state of emergency that allowed local mask orders, wouldn’t approve a new municipal mandate. He instead suggested action by the state Legislature, which granted that permission in S.1, “an act relating to temporary municipal rules in response to Covid-19.”
“Consistency,” Brattleboro Town Manager Peter Elwell told a special legislative session last month, “is very important to maintaining a higher level of protection for public health.”
The new state law allows municipalities to adopt temporary mask mandates for public indoor spaces as long as they review such measures every 30 days and rescind them by April 30, 2022.
If Brattleboro ordered proof of vaccination for public spaces, it would be the first municipality in the state — although not the nation — to do so. Cities including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., have adopted some sort of ordinance requiring shots or a negative result from a recent Covid-19 test.
But Brattleboro leaders are far from reaching any consensus.
“Before we potentially get to the massive can of worms, can we even talk about that?” Selectboard member Ian Goodnow said of a local call for proof of vaccination. “We are operating under a very narrow order the Legislature has given us the ability to do.”
Colleague Jessica Gelter, a proponent of the mask mandate, has reservations about ordering proof of shots.
“If you’re requiring vaccinations (to enter public spaces), that really limits how people can participate in the community,” Gelter said.
Selectboard member Tim Wessel favors proverbial carrots rather than sticks.
“I’d like to have heavy, science-based encouragement than a rule, which I think has increased polarization and has not increased actual adherence of the mask order,” Wessel said.
The Brattleboro town manager, in response, says the municipality is enforcing the effort with a “very gentle, educational, encouraging” hand.
“We get a fair number of complaints,” Elwell said, “and when we do, we follow up with the people who run those businesses and then we don’t get more complaints. That tells me people are responding. I’ve been seeing some actual impact from this.”
The Brattleboro Selectboard is scheduled to revisit its mask mandate and possibly other pandemic precautions when it meets Jan. 18.
“I really think this is going to be a hard winter, and public health people are warning that the (Omicron) variant is going to be all-consuming,” Selectboard Chair Elizabeth McLoughlin said. “When we all have a chance to take stock of what happens after Christmas, we might need sterner stuff to combat the crisis around us.”
