KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Business owners across the Kansas City area are trying to figure out the best way to enforce mask policies without denying customers.
“Our regulation here is that we’re requiring masks to come in our store, if you don’t want to that’s cool, but you know, you can’t come in,” said Holly Pollard, owner of Brookside Toy & Science.
Pollard told 41 Action News it’s plain and simple, customers that don’t wear a mask cannot shop inside her store.
“We’ve really tried to either bring stuff out to them so that they can still have access to our store just from outside or sometimes we direct them to the website and they can do the contact free pick-up,” Pollard said.
Since re-opening her store in May, Pollard told 41 Action News employees have been required to wear a mask while customers have been encouraged.
As of Monday, encouragement turned into a requirement in Kansas City, Missouri.
“No business wants to put regulations on their customers, it was a hard decision to make and I don’t enjoy having to say you can’t come in unless this,” Pollard said.
Across the state line in Leawood, Kansas, the co-owner of Rye told 41 Action News the restaurant is just happy to be doing business again.
“Everyone has their opinion, I don’t really want to hear it, I just want to keep my doors open," Megan Garrelts said.
After months of being shut down, Garrelts said navigating reopening has been hard.
Policing a mandate is not something Garrelts is excited to do. She told 41 Action News that she’s hopeful customers will follow the rules so the restaurant can remain open.
“I don’t want to pay a fine on top of everything else we’ve had to do because someone didn’t want to wear a mask,” Garrrelts said.
Businesses in Kansas are waiting for specifics from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly when it comes to enforcing the new policy and what fines might be given out to those not following.
