Kudos to Tacoma bars, restaurants for requiring proof of vaccine. More should follow
So much of the responsibility and burden has fallen on their shoulders, since the very beginning.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, bars and restaurants were some of the first local businesses to shutter, sending thousands of service industry workers onto the unemployment rolls and forcing owners to attempt to weather the storm. Later, during the state’s up-and-down “re-opening,” it was local bars and restaurants that were often forced to navigate some of the most onerous mandates, from limiting seating capacity to — somehow — checking to make sure that everyone at a table resided at the same address.
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that now — in the latest stage of this ongoing nightmare, with COVID-19 variants wreaking havoc — local bars and restaurants have once again been thrust onto the front lines of the precarious intersection between business and public health.
Vaccines — and increasing the overall vaccination rate, as unlikely as that’s starting to feel — is our best way out of the crisis we’ve lived with for the past 16 months (and lately have only prolonged). Everyone with any sense knows it, yet the idea of mandates requiring the vaccine — whether by local government decree, or on an employer-by-employer basis — remain relatively rare, not to mention highly contentious.
Once again, it’s leaving bars and restaurants to do the pandemic dirty work.
As The Seattle Times reported, at least 60 Seattle bars and restaurants have recently decided to require proof of vaccination for service, which is a number that’s likely grown by now. And while Tacoma is a different ballgame for a number of reasons, according to en Rama operator Chris Keil, that doesn’t mean local restaurateurs aren’t thinking and talking about doing the same down here.
Some, like en Rama, will make the move soon — at least for customers wishing to dine indoors, Keil said. Others, like The Mix in Tacoma’s St. Helens District and Red Star Taco Bar up the street, already are.
We should be grateful to all of them — because it’s the right thing to do.
We should also hope that more have the courage to follow suit, because at this stage in the game, it’s become achingly clear that local governments that could take some of the pressure off them by instituting broader vaccine mandates have yet to muster the guts and political courage to do it.
According to Keil, he was initially hesitant to require proof of vaccination at en Rama, in part because of the grief his staff put up with trying to enforce rules about masking and social distancing. He was swayed, however, by the spread of the delta variant, and specifically when a vaccinated member of his staff came down with a breakthrough COVID case that required the restaurant to shut down for roughly a week.
As he has since nearly the beginning, Keil said he feels left out to dry, forced to make impossible decisions about the safety and well-being of his staff and the community they serve — while also trying to survive financially.
Really, who could blame him?
“It’s utter nonsense that this is being put on us,” Keil said of the vaccination dilemma he and others in the service industry are now facing, criticizing what he views as a lack of government support and a rush to return to business as usual.
“We have always taken more precautions than … the state health department and the CDC recommended, and we’re going to go back to doing that, unfortunately,” Keil said. “I think it’s total (expletive) that … we have to be the ones .getting literally or figuratively spit on by pissed-off, entitled people because the government won’t step in.”
At Red Star, where proof of vaccination has been required since Monday, owners Billy Beckett and Padraic Markle see things differently, but largely arrive at the same point.
The move to require vaccination for service stemmed from their experience in Seattle, they said, where a number of restaurants near the restaurant’s Fremont location recently banded together to take a stand. Carrying the policy over to Tacoma, according to Beckett, “wasn’t a hard decision.”
Overall, Markle said he’s leery of vaccine mandates, and believes it’s important for local businesses to retain the freedom to respond in a way “that we see fit.” Government mandates, he suggested, can have unintended negative consequences.
He also acknowledged the weight of that duty.
“That’s kind of the nature of running a small business in this country. We have to take responsibility for our own business, and our own community, time and time again. There’s a beauty in that, (and) a certain amount of freedom,” Markle said. “ Small business owners take responsibility for as much as they possibly can.”
Looking toward the near future, Beckett and Markle said they wouldn’t be surprised if more and more Tacoma restaurants make the decision to require proof of vaccination in the coming weeks. And while Markle rightfully lamented how the COVID-19 vaccine has become needlessly “politicized,” Beckett believes that most of these choices will come down to two simple factors: protecting employees and the community, and doing everything possible to avoid being forced to shutdown again.
That’s what happened in Seattle, Beckett said, and like many things, he expects Tacoma to follow close behind.
“My honest assessment is Seattle gets hit first, and then we get hit,” Beckett said, citing a rash of COVID-related closures in Seattle that prompted the decision by many to require proof of vaccination.
“Right now I’ve only heard of two (restaurants) down here (in Tacoma) that are requiring it … but as it becomes more prevalent, and it happens more and more in local bars and restaurants and local gathering places, the more we’re going to see people join in.”
Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Pierson agrees. While he doubts a vaccine requirement movement will spread beyond Tacoma — given the obvious differences in politics and circumstances for businesses operating in the more conservative areas of the county — he thinks it’s a decision an increasing number of City of Destiny restaurants will soon feel compelled to make.
“I think if this variant grows, it’ll become an easier decision for restaurants, because they’re going to want to keep their doors open,” Pierson said.
As far as motivations go, you’ve got to admit: it’s a pretty compelling one.
It also makes you wonder if there isn’t a better way.
