Name: ‘Sorry, no mask allowed’: Some businesses pledge to keep out customers who cover their faces
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‘Sorry, no mask allowed’: Some businesses pledge to keep out customers who cover their faces

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For 64 days, Kevin Smith had shut down the Liberty Tree Tavern to comply with government orders. Now he was cleaning and disinfecting and removing stools to cut seating by three-quarters as he prepared to reopen the bar.Plexiglass screens had gone up at the supermarket checkout. His neighbors in Elgin, Tex., were still wearing masks outside, even after it was no longer mandated by the county. He did not think such a response was necessary, he said, and he wanted to push back.“Sorry, no mask allowed,” read the poster taped to the front door of his bar Friday. “Please bare with us thru the ridiculous fearful times.”As statewide orders are easing, many stores and restaurants nationwide have : They have made face coverings a requirement, kicking out those who fail to comply and even to enforce their directives.ADADYet in the , a handful of businesses — the Liberty Tree Tavern among them — are fashioning themselves as fortresses for the resistance.“If we’re only allowed to be at 25 percent capacity, I want them to be the 25 percent of people that aren’t p-----, that aren’t sheep,” Smith told The Washington Post. “Being scared all the time isn’t good for your health. It suppresses your immune system.”At one Kentucky gas station, inside the adjacent convenience store if they are wearing a mask. Near Los Angeles, a flooring store encourages hugs and handshakes while face coverings. The owner of a campground in rural Wisconsin to treat clients sporting them inside her facilities as she would “a robbery in progress.”ADAlvin’s in Manchester, KY.Let’s spread their shame.Frankfort will be notified about this and a few other things.Posted by on&nbsp;Scientific and medical experts agree people should cover their faces in public to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed at least 100,000 people in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains that masks serve as an especially important safeguard in crowded spaces, where social distancing is impossible.ADBut Smith, who said he did not believe the virus poses a serious threat, wanted to stir the pot.For years, he has run his 60-seat bar, which occupies a converted alleyway on Elgin’s main drag, just as he pleases. Smoking is permitted during karaoke nights and performances by local talent, and beers are served in black-and-white koozies that say, “Come and drink it,” playing off the .ADA two-month shutdown from Texas officials had forced him to cancel a benefit concert for veterans and close down during the busy rush of customers who fly in to nearby Austin for South by Southwest. For three weeks, a Bastrop County rule in public or face up to 180 days in jail.“Why are we having to do this?” he asked. “We’re not here to live in fear.”A town of about 10,000 people, Elgin has 53 coronavirus infections and one of the two deaths in the county. Even as local officials residents to cover their faces, Smith said he does not believe masks are necessary.ADBartenders need to see their customers’ faces to check IDs and make sure no one gets served too many drinks, he argued. Anyone with the virus, including those who are asymptomatic, should not be coming out to begin with. Besides, he asked: How are you supposed to down a beer with a bandanna stretched across your lips?ADOne regular at the Liberty Tree Tavern, 58-year old Charles Chamberlain, said he survived both Stage 4 cancer and the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu. He spent a full year in a Houston hospital, he the Austin American-Statesman, before becoming so frustrated at his isolation that he cut the cancer treatment short.“This quarantine. … That’s not living, that’s existing,” he said. “Going to the bar, going to the lake, going swimming with your friends, barbecuing, fishing — that’s living.”ADSmith, who also ranches cattle, said his customers have social distancing built into their rural lifestyle. For now, the regulars don’t seem to mind his request. No one had been kicked out yet for disobeying the poster, and one customer’s son, who has intellectual disabilities, was allowed to keep his mask on.ADChamberlain, who has been out to the Liberty Tree Tavern about three times since it reopened, plans to keep coming back.“You should have a choice of what you want to do,” he told the American-Statesman. “If I get it, I get it. If I do, I’ll deal with that. You can’t live forever.”Watch more:The Washington Post is providing some coronavirus coverage free, including:Live updates: Coronavirus maps: | | What you need to know: | | | Follow all of our and .How to help: | | | Have you been hospitalized for covid-19? .Receive the most important pandemic developments in your inbox every day. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.By signing up you agree to our and Receive the most important pandemic developments in your inbox every day. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.By signing up you agree to our and

For 64 days, Kevin Smith had shut down the Liberty Tree Tavern to comply with government orders. Now he was cleaning and disinfecting and removing stools to cut seating by three-quarters as he prepared to reopen the bar.Plexiglass screens had gone up at the supermarket checkout. His neighbors in Elgin, Tex., were still wearing masks outside, even after it was no longer mandated by the county. He did not think such a response was necessary, he said, and he wanted to push back.“Sorry, no mask allowed,” read the poster taped to the front door of his bar Friday. “Please bare with us thru the...

‘Sorry, no mask allowed’: Some businesses pledge to keep out customers who cover their faces

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