BUFFALO (WBEN) - The move by New York State to align with the CDC's updated policy on masks and social distancing created some confusion for business owners, especially since private businesses are allowed to set their own mandates within the state's required guidance.
In fact, Mike Mule, manager of Anchor Bar in Amherst, said it probably would have been easier if the state supplied the restaurant industry with uniform guidance so each owner knows exactly what's required and allowed.
"I think the simplicity of it would make it much easier for everybody because you're not confusing the public, you're making everything kind of fall in line," he began. "Instead of one expectation from the next, everybody kind of has the same understanding that if you can do the same things in one place, you're going to do them in the other.
"We just ultimately are trying to do what we think is best for our customers and our establishment," Mule continued. "It would probably be easier if they just set one rule, one guideline, and everybody followed it."
Anchor Bar is using the honor system to allow vaccinated customers to go maskless, but they are still requiring their employees to wear masks for the time being.
Paul Santora is the owner of Santora's, and his approach to the guidance is simple: whatever the new guidance allows for is what will be practiced at his restaurants, and this includes allowing vaccinated employees to go maskless.
Santora said he wants to help along the process of acclimating to post-pandemic life, but he noted that it's going to take some time to unlearn a year of habits.
"We've been trained to wear masks for (over a year), so it's even weird for me today to walk around without a mask - I feel like I'm dirty," said Santora. "We're going to follow to the best of the ability what we know we need to do like we've always done, and we will adjust and adapt as they release more information as to what we can do."
Like Mule, Santora thinks more guidance from the state would be beneficial, saying the industry as a whole needs clarification on several items.
"If there's any type of business that should be clarified on the regulations, it 100% should be restaurants," he said. "We're really not sure on the clarification of being able to get up, walk around, and go to the bar. That's something everybody out there is wondering because that was an executive order, but we're not sure if that executive order demolished.
"I guess it wouldn't really make any sense to not be able to go to the bar if you're vaccinated and everybody at the bar is that way," Santora continued. "It's going to take a little while to get full clarification."
Regardless of some of the finer points that need to be specified, Mule noted that restaurants acting as mask and vaccination police still places and undo burden on the industry as a whole.
"The reality is that it's a lot to ask of us," Mule began. "We're running businesses already, there's been restrictions that we've had to deal with over the last 10-12 months, so it's a lot to ask."
