photo by: Rochelle Valverde

A sign at Love Garden Sounds, 822 Massachusetts St., advises customers that they must wear a facial covering to enter.

As more local businesses reopen after COVID-19-related shutdowns, some are doing so with a new sign on their door telling all customers they must wear a facial covering.

And business owners who spoke with the Journal-World last week said most of their customers are fine with that. In fact, one business owner can count the number of people who objected on one hand.

Kelly Corcoran, owner of the downtown record store Love Garden Sounds, said that out of the 500 or 600 shoppers he’s seen since the store reopened for walk-in customers on May 30, he’s only had two people argue about wearing masks. One of them said the mask requirement violated his constitutional rights — “I just locked the door in his face as he started to yell,” Corcoran said — and the other one walked in without a mask but eventually agreed to “participate in the collective delusion” by wearing one.

“That is the extent of it,” Corcoran said. “Everyone else is like, ‘Cool, no problem.'”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the COVID-19 virus is thought to spread mainly between people in close contact, within about 6 feet, through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. COVID-19 can be spread by people who do not have symptoms and do not know that they are infected. As a result, the CDC recommends that people wear cloth face coverings in public to help stop asymptomatic people from spreading the virus.

photo by: Rochelle Valverde

Love Garden Sounds owner Kelly Corcoran works behind the counter as several customers wearing masks browse the shop on June 5, 2020.

At Love Garden, 822 Massachusetts St., Corcoran has taken additional steps to help keep customers safe. Love Garden offers disposable masks for customers who don’t have one, and hand sanitizer and rubber gloves are available for customers, even though they aren’t required. The store is also limiting its capacity to 15 people at a time to facilitate social distancing, and employees are wiping down surfaces twice a day.

photo by: Rochelle Valverde

Rubber gloves are available for customers who want to use them for browsing at Love Garden Sounds, 822 Massachusetts St.

To inform customers about the mask requirement, Love Garden has displayed a simple yellow sign — Corcoran said the store adapted it from a record label flyer from the 1970s — with an image of someone wearing a mask. At the request of other businesses, Corcoran said he printed more copies of the sign. He said he’s given out roughly 45 of them to other local business owners so far.

And the signs seem to be catching some shoppers’ attention. At one point during the phone interview with the Journal-World, Corcoran observed one person not wearing a mask enter the shop and turn around after seeing the sign — and then, directly after that, two people with their faces covered walked in.

• • •

About half a block away on Massachusetts Street, one of the yellow signs greets customers entering Game Nut Entertainment.

But though the sign’s the same as the one on Love Garden’s door, the story is a bit different. While many customers are fine with the requirement, manager Mitchell Denney said he also heard a lot of complaints and hostility from people who don’t want to wear the masks, especially in the first week after reopening.

“There is definitely anger there,” Denney said. “The first week or so was the worst of it; since then, things have gotten a little better.”

photo by: Rochelle Valverde

A sign at Game Nut Entertainment, 844 Massachusetts St., advises customers that they must wear a facial covering to enter.

Denney said that of the people who come in without masks, about half have reacted angrily and left. He wasn’t sure exactly how many people that was, but he said it was definitely more than a dozen. The other people without masks opted to use the shop’s curbside service instead of going in the store, he said.

On Friday, customers throughout downtown Lawrence could be seen pulling masks from their pockets and putting them on before entering shops. Game Nut customer Paris Herman entered the shop with a black cloth face covering that she said she made herself using a T-shirt. Herman said even though it was warmer with the face covering on — temperatures were over 90 degrees outside at the time — she was happy to do it because it helped keep people safe.

“All it takes is one person’s open mouth (to spread the virus) — the stream you don’t actually see,” she said after she finished her shopping.

Denney said Game Nut would reevaluate the mask requirement every couple of weeks.

photo by: Rochelle Valverde

A clerk at Game Nut, 844 Massachusetts St., wears a mask while attending to a customer on June 5, 2020.

• • •

Among the first businesses to mandate masks were salons and barbershops — state and local health orders required both staff and customers to wear masks, in part because of the proximity required for a haircut.

Some salons haven’t stopped there, though. Static Hair Salon, 1145 Pennsylvania St., has eliminated walk-in appointments, and the salon no longer has a waiting area. Customers are instead required to wait in their cars or on the salon’s front porch until their stylist is ready. They’re not allowed to bring anyone else with them to their appointment, and they’re required to wash their hands or use hand sanitizer as they enter the business.

photo by: Rochelle Valverde

Stylists and customers all wear masks at Static Salon, 1145 Pennsylvania St., on June 5, 2020.

Owner Roxanne McCoy-Klaus, who is also a stylist, said that 100 to 150 clients have come in since the salon reopened, and only a few people have said they don’t want to wear a mask. She said those people have opted to wait until the rules change or go somewhere else. McCoy-Klaus said that wearing a mask is uncomfortable for everyone, because it’s a new procedure, but that both staff and clients are getting used to it.

“The clients willing to come back, I think, appreciate there is something put in place for them as well as for us,” McCoy-Klaus said. She said Static would continue to follow health guidelines and that she expected masks to be around for a while.

photo by: Rochelle Valverde

Static Owner Roxanne McCoy-Klaus, who is also a stylist, tends to a client at the salon on June 5, 2020.

Phase 3 of the local reopening plan will begin Monday. In accordance with Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s reopening guidelines, the county will allow gatherings of up to 45 people — currently, the gathering limit sits at 15. And Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health announced Thursday that under Phase 3, all businesses that have been closed during the COVID-19 pandemic can reopen with proper social distancing measures. The health department recommends that people continue wearing masks in public and practice measures of good hygiene, such as washing hands frequently and staying home if they feel sick.

Meanwhile, store owners are keeping an eye on the guidelines — and the impact they’re having on business.

Corcoran said that sales have increased as Love Garden has transitioned from curbside pickup back to in-store shopping, but business remains slow compared with past years. He is still evaluating what the shop’s new capacity will be come Monday — he expects it will be between 30 and 45 people — but he did not expect to change the rule requiring face coverings anytime soon.

“As long as it’s publicly recommended to wear a mask, we’re going to stick with it,” he said.