Data: As States Reopen, Local Businesses Grapple with Mask Dilemma
- The majority of consumers clearly support strict masking enforcement and prefer businesses that do this. Women and older consumers are most supportive.
- A meaningful anti-mask minority creates a dilemma for local businesses. The attitudes of this group remain largely unchanged since last year.
- National reporting tends to focus on anti-masking attitudes, creating the impression that they're more widespread than they actually are.
Texas 'Freedom' vs. Local Business Responsibility
Several weeks ago Texas was in the news when the governor removed the mask mandate and left the decision of whether customers should wear masks to individual businesses. A number of articles hit the press, detailing the impact this was having on businesses.
The Washington Post reported that a local Mexican restaurant decided to keep its mask rule and received threats that visitors would call ICE. Meanwhile, the Culture Map Austin, reported popular grocery chain H-E-B decided to not to require customer masks, but quickly reversed course after a public outcry.
Texas, purportedly a pro business state, shifted masking enforcement and liability risk to the individual business level. Which story are we to believe: are consumers for or against businesses imposing stricter masking rules? These stories raise the question of how should a business navigate this once again treacherous public-health terrain?
On the one hand, The Washington Post paints a picture of unjustified attacks against the restaurant for requiring masks. Meanwhile, a small regional news outlet reported on a Texas grocery chain with 340 locations as having first relaxed consumer masking but then reversing itself after broad public demands for continued masking enforcement.