TRI-COUNTY — Big Bend residents might be feeling a sense of déjà vu these days. Judging by crowds across the tri-county, the spring break holidays are in full swing for 2021, just as they seemed to be last year until coronavirus abruptly nixed holiday plans.
Meanwhile, just like last spring, Texas state officials have once again barred local officials from adopting mask rules, one of the simplest ways to limit coronavirus spread while keeping the economy open. And while there are some promising signs in Texans’ fight against the pandemic, including an accelerating vaccine rollout, some residents and officials worry that just like last year, Texas is declaring victory a little too early.
The end of mask rules has been felt differently across the tri-county. Just like last year, businesses are still free to impose such rules for their own establishments. But with local ordinances like Marfa’s mask rule off the table, maskless faces are again showing up at places like Porter’s, where masks are no longer required, and at Dollar General, where they still are. Some business owners in the region have been pleasantly surprised to find customers complying with mask rules at their stores and restaurants. But others — including the owner of several gas stations in Presidio — say they’re once again dealing with unruly customers who insist that masks are no longer required in Texas.
Jose Prat, a manager at Thunderbird Hotel in Marfa, has been pleased to find his tourist business booming again. He’s consistently booked at around 60% for the spring break holidays, he says. With Thunderbird still limiting occupancy due to the pandemic, that’s basically full capacity.
Like other businesses in tourist-oriented Marfa, Prat has been relieved to see the return of the normal spring break crowd. Business has been slow in recent months, as potential tourists canceled trips in reaction to spikes in the region or the sense — fair or not — that Marfa didn’t want guests.
Now, Marfa is starting to feel like its old tourist-town self again. For the next two weeks, Prat said, “we don’t have any rooms left.”
“We’re super positive and super optimistic,” Prat said this week, reflecting on the visitors who were filling his rooms and the sidewalks in Marfa. “We’re really happy right now.”
Thunderbird technically requires masks — though as a hospitality business, Prat says, “We’ve never been aggressive with it.” Still, he’s had no problems with customers. “I haven’t seen a single person walking [around the hotel] without a mask,” he said.
The same seems to be largely true for Marfa in general. At the last city council meeting, Steve Marquez, the chief of Marfa police, encouraged business owners to call if they were dealing with customers who refused to mask up. But so far, he says, no one has called in.
“We really haven’t had any reports,” Marquez said in an interview this week. “From my perspective, it’s been all right.”
Other business owners say they’ve also been pleasantly surprised not only with the comeback of Big Bend tourism but with the ease with which they’ve been able to enforce mask requirements in their establishments. Compared to last year — when Texas businesses were first left to create mask policies for their own establishments — many say enforcing those policies is easier now.
That even includes more conservative parts of the tri-county, like in Fort Davis, where mask rules have at times prompted rancour from residents. Jennifer Harrod, co-owner of the Fort Davis Drug Store, said she was nervous when Governor Greg Abbott announced this month that he was rolling back state mask rules.
Harrod has long had some of the stricter mask rules in Fort Davis. She wanted to keep her employees and customers safe but worried about lost customers or outbursts from anti-maskers. She spoke to her husband Richard, who co-owns the business, and they agreed they should “do the right thing” and keep mask rules even when the state order expired. And so far at least, she says she’s faced little pushback from residents or visitors.
Earlier this month, the store announced on social media that it was keeping mask rules. “In the span of just the last two weeks, our town and our staff have lost two dear people to COVID,” the post read. “We don’t feel now is the time to leave our staff or our guests at risk, so our ‘masks required’ signs will stay up.”
The post saw an overwhelmingly positive response, Harrod said, with almost 300 likes and dozens of supportive comments. “There were even some surprising comments from people who were anti-mask,” she said. Overall, she says, adopting mask rules has been at worst “a wash” and maybe even good for business. While she’s lost some customers for now, she says she’s gained new ones who appreciate her commitment to coronavirus precautions.
Meanwhile, like Prat in Marfa, Harrod has been pleased to see tourist numbers picking up again in the region. Running a hotel and restaurant in Fort Davis, “you barely make it through February,” she said. “March is about digging yourself out of that hole.”
With coronavirus still going — and with the mask mandate expiring — Harrod worried that she would have a repeat of March 2020, when spring break tourism suddenly dried up. Instead, she says, tourists are back in the region — and better yet, they’re willing to follow her mask rules.
“People have been surprisingly respectful,” Harrod said. “I’ve only had a couple people that are not nice about it.”
In Alpine, Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson says many business owners are continuing to require masks in their establishments. And so far at least, he has heard of few if any outbursts at stores.
“We’ve had a couple of incidents,” he said, “but it was usually people with masks wanting others to have masks on.” He figures that by now, pro-mask and anti-mask residents are mostly shopping at stores that align with their own mask values.
At his own gun store, Dodson is limiting capacity but decided not to require masks. “It’s kind of weird, to have a guy walk into a gun store with a mask on,” he explains. But even still, he says many customers are still masking up — and it’s not just the usual suspects. “We have some of the staunchest conservative people in the world,” Dodson said, “and they’re wearing masks.”
But even as the end of the mask mandate goes smoother-than-expected in much of the tri-county, there have been exceptions.
In Presidio, Ariel Lara, who runs three gas stations, said he’s dealt with “dozens” of customers who have argued with staff over his mask rules. At least twice, the situation escalated to the point where workers had to call Presidio police. “Ariel Lara, part owner of the store, claimed he was afraid for the safety of his employees,” a police incident report reads.
Customers have complained that “the governor has said Texas is open and there are no more masks in Texas,” Lara said, summarizing the complaints he’s gotten from anti-mask customers. He’d prefer to keep his mask rules in place to keep his employees safe from coronavirus — but given the incidents, he’s started to wonder if it would be safer for his workers if they didn’t enforce mask rules.
John Ferguson, the mayor of Presidio, has heard about complaints from Lara and other residents. Since Governor Abbott ended statewide mask rules, “I do hear anecdotally that mask wearing is not really what it once was,” he said.
Many of the people who refuse to wear masks, he said, seem to be just passing through town. “Presidio continues to embrace mask-wearing — and that’s to our credit. But unfortunately, a lot of people come from out of town and are like, ‘Hey, I’m not doing this anymore.’”
Regardless, some of the lack of complaints could simply be because stores have either ended their mask rules or are no longer enforcing them. Despite Dollar General keeping its mask rules in place, a customer without a mask could be seen on a recent visit. Porter’s — the primary grocery store chain in the tri-county — has stopped requiring masks for customers and is instead simply recommending them.
Trae Porter, part of the ownership team at Porter’s, said the decision “wasn’t made lightly” and that policies could change, for example if the region sees another spike. But in a follow-up interview this week, Porter declined to comment on why the store had decided to end its mask requirements.
“We’ve moved on from this,” he said. “I’ve said all I’m going to say about it.”
In easing coronavirus restrictions like mask rules, state leaders have often touted their decisions as good for business. But Prat, the Thunderbird manager, said he got some cancellations after Texas ended its mask mandate.
“It really kind of hurt us,” he said — noting that Abbott’s decision to end the mask mandate, which President Joe Biden characterized as “Neanderthal thinking,” was “painting Texas in a pretty bad light.” As Prat, Harrod and others have learned throughout the pandemic, lax coronavirus rules aren’t always what’s best for business.
