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By Pepper Fisher

PORT ANGELES – The firestorm over the Health Department’s latest vaccine mandate for restaurants is exceeded only by the growing wildfire that is the pandemic in Clallam County, including 6 more deaths over the Labor Day weekend.

Since Health Officer Allison Berry announced the new restriction, which says only vaccinated people can enter bars and restaurants, there have been protests and rampant speculation about what it will do to those businesses.

We reached out to several restaurant owners to find out what really happened over the Labor Day weekend after the new rules took effect on Saturday.

For most, business was down for a holiday weekend. One thing they seemed to agree on is that employees, overall, are uncomfortable having to deal with the new rules.

Next Door Gastropub and Bourbon West owner Jake Oppelt put it this way.

“Business is definitely down. Staffing in the industry, in general, is extremely one-sided on this and they absolutely do not want to police it. It’s not a for-or-against vaccine thing. It’s just having to police something and ask people about their vaccine status.”

For Kokopelli and Coyote BBQ owner Mike McQuay, that translated into employee walkouts.

“We actually had three people walk off the job at Coyote Saturday, just because they don’t want to be part of an industry that is being subject to these kinds of mandates.”

Bar Hop owner Tom Curry lost 4 employees after announcing he’d be following the mandate to the letter. That caused him to have to close for the weekend, but he’s undeterred.

“To me, this past weekend is just another bump, you know, over the course of the covid-19 pathway that were traveling. From the start of the pandemic, Barhop has made it clear that we think the safest way out of this pandemic is to follow Public Health guidelines.”

Jose Garcia and Angee Conklin-Garcia own Jose’s Famous Salsa House. Conklin-Garcia says business was awful on Saturday, but a little better when they reopened on Labor Day.

“I think people don’t know exactly what to think. I think if people are unvaccinated, now they feel like they can never go out to eat. So I think people are just confused and worried and kind of holing up in their house. The majority of the people who actually did come in on Monday were out-of-towners and they had no idea that this was even going on.”

McQuay says it’s a little early to predict how this is going to play out, but over the weekend customers were pretty understanding.

“There’s a lot more turmoil and vitriol on social media than we saw at the actual restaurants. We had people walk out Saturday early at both restaurants because they didn’t feel like we were following the mandate to the letter, although we’re doing the best we can, and we had people walk out because we’re following the mandate in any fashion at all. But very little of that.”

If there is any hope that vaccinated people will come out in droves and make up for the loss of unvaccinated customers, Oppelt believes that hope is misguided.

“I think that’s a kind of a long shot or a pipe dream to think that people are just going to flock out to restaurants all of a sudden. You either go to restaurants often or you don’t. And what you do is, you change your everyday customer base, based on having to be afraid they might have to prove, or aren’t comfortable proving a vaccination status and sharing that medical information. And then you have a lot of people that assume that they cannot eat out because of the mandate, and they don’t have a vaccine card, and so they just aren’t going out.”

Conklin-Garcia wishes she could just throw the doors open and let the market take care of itself, trusting that people will do the right thing.

“100%. I feel like if you’re worried about, you know, coming out to a restaurant, then don’t come out to a restaurant. Or order ‘to go’ or do Door Dash.”

Not everyone agrees. Curry stands firmly with Dr. Berry.

“Personally, I think Dr. Berry is being unjustly vilified for delivering a message that a segment of our population doesn’t want to hear. I think she’s courageous. I think she has more education and experience in public health, epidemiology and the lifecycle of a virus than I do. And I’m going to follow her lead.”

Dr. Berry said on Friday that when our rate of cases per 100,000 in a 2-week period gets back down to 75 she would lift the mandate.