30 hours in a masked city: While SC shies from mask law, Columbia adapts quickly
They wore them walking out of office buildings and stepping out of cars. They wore them inside grocery stores and big box establishments. They wore them in 90-degree heat walking around the zoo. They wore them over beards and with sunglasses. They pulled them down over their chins or let them hang off of one ear to smoke or sip coffees, and they secured them on their children’s faces.
Between Thursday night and Friday morning, it was as if a switch had flipped across Columbia — a switch that pulled a mask over the noses and mouths of the vast majority of faces in public places.
For the first time in many of the capital city’s public areas, from sidewalks to stores, it appeared that mask-wearers outnumbered the unmasked, and not by a small margin.
Beginning Friday at 6 a.m., Columbians age 11 and older were required to wear a face covering in public settings such as stores, restaurants and other gathering spaces, and businesses were required to have their employees wear masks when interacting with the public. The mandate was enacted last week to help combat the rapid spread of coronavirus, as infections have exploded across South Carolina in the past month and the death toll has surpassed 700 people.
S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster, who has maintained he has no plan to enact a mask rule statewide, doubled down on that stance Friday, saying there’s no way to enforce it.
But observations The State’s journalists made in the first 30 hours after Columbia’s mask requirement took effect were a show of how quickly a mandate — even without being strictly enforced — could change many people’s behavior quite literally overnight.
“It’s absolutely needed. If you don’t wear a mask, you need to go to jail, because clearly you don’t care about people,” said a masked Nia Byas, 20, of Columbia as she wore a mask Friday night in Five Points, a popular entertainment district for college students who have been noticeably without masks in recent weeks.
Reporters and a photographer from The State observed mask-wearing in spaces across the city all day Friday, the first day the ordinance went into effect, and on Saturday morning, when the popular weekly Soda City Market returned to Main Street for the first time since the start of the pandemic. This is how Columbians, and those in town visiting, responded to the new mask mandate.
Early morning
No more than an hour had passed since Columbia’s mask law officially took effect, but it was mostly business as usual at Drip coffee shop in Five Points, where masks have been a relative norm since the shop reopened a few weeks ago amid the pandemic.
“So far this morning, pretty much everyone has come in with masks, which has been great. But time will tell,” said Jess Ochoa, a barista who made pour-over coffees, Drip’s specialty, at the counter facing the door.
You get used to wearing a mask, Ochoa said. She and her coworkers have been wearing them for their full shifts for a while, so it feels comforting to see customers sacrifice a little comfort to wear masks, too, she said.
“We don’t wear ours to protect ourselves, obviously. So it’s really nice to see people taking it seriously,” Ochoa said. “It says they care about the community and the people around them.”
From 7-7:30 a.m., just one person, a woman in scrubs, was observed walking into the coffee shop without a face covering.
Closer to the city center, as travelers began to make their way into work, a man stood outside the S.C. State House along Gervais Street holding a cardboard sign that said, “Welcome to Sodom and Gomorrah.” He stood alone; he was not wearing a mask.
The morning shoppers
From 9:50-10 a.m. at Target off of Garners Ferry Road, a sign on the door said masks must be worn because of an emergency order.
Most people wore masks inside of the store, except for a few instances when a person was talking on the phone, or to presumably a nearby loved one, The State observed.
In the same shopping center, one man went into the Panera Bread, but did not appear to be wearing a mask, while across the street a woman put on a mask as she walked into the Shear Xpectations salon.
At a bus stop along Garners Ferry Road, a man standing by himself at a bus stop at 10:10 a.m. wore a mask despite the temperatures in the 80s.
Inside of the Walmart along Garners Ferry Road, most of the few hundred people wore masks. However, a handful of people were not adhering to the mask rule. Two store employees had masks around their chins instead of covering their noses and mouths. However, no customers were nearby.
Lunchtime
Fats Waller the dog and his owner walked out of the Granger Owings menswear store on Main Street. One of them was wearing a mask; the other was still a very good boy.
“I’ve been wearing a mask ever since the pandemic started … because I want to stay healthy and don’t want to infect anyone else,” said Fats Waller’s masked owner, who wished not to be named. “Not enough (people) are wearing them. … People are being very casual about the whole situation. I always thought it would get worse before it gets better, and it will.”
Around three-fourths of people were observed wearing masks on Main Street right around noon, even on sidewalks where people passing each other were able to keep 6 feet or more between people.
In Five Points, nearly nine out of 10 people wore masks while walking along Saluda Avenue, where most businesses already had posted signs telling customers they must wear a mask before Friday’s rule took effect.
The majority of people in the city’s major retail and entertainment districts complied with the mask requirement, despite the fact that city police officers have not been tasked with enforcing the ordinance, which was passed by a 6-1 City Council vote on Tuesday.
Council members have acknowledged the ordinance is largely an encouragement measure. It has teeth — a $25 fine for individual offenders, or $100 for businesses not complying — but city leaders have indicated they’ll be soft with enforcement, at least early on.
For the first week or so of the new rule, city leaders plan to educate people about mask-wearing and encourage them to participate. Rather than police enforcement, the city will rely on employees such as parking and code enforcers and neighborhood ambassadors — so-called “yellow shirts” in downtown entertainment districts — to remind people to wear masks, officials have said.
“We understand that some people really don’t want to wear a mask,” Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine said in a Facebook Live video Thursday afternoon, just before the ordinance took effect. But, she noted, “there are lots of laws out there that people don’t like.”
“This is not government overreach. This is not trying to be heavy-handed,” Devine said. “This is trying to protect our community.”
Around lunchtime Friday, masked City Councilmen Will Brennan and Howard Duvall met with the city’s public works director, Robert Anderson (also masked), at the newly resurfaced parking lot in Five Points, near where a steady crowd of lunchtime diners sat along the sidewalk at the popular Gourmet Shop. Duvall had observed that the restaurant was turning away customers who walked in without face coverings. And, he noted, while shopping at a Publix grocery store earlier in the day, employees and fellow customers were all masked up.
As Duvall’s wife and daughter walked up the sidewalk to meet him, he reminded them to pull their masks over their noses.
Masks worn at the zoo
Because of the ordinance, the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden instituted a mandatory mask policy inside the park, where attractions are mostly outdoors, and most visitors who came between noon and 1 p.m. adhered to the mask policy.
“We are being mindful of what the mayor and city council has set forth. We certainly want to abide by that and be mindful,” said Susan O’Cain, a spokeswoman for the zoo. “But also in turn we understand where some of the public is coming from and some of the frustration. We’re also trying to be respectful and mindful of our guests as well.”
Before the requirement, about 10% of the guests wore masks, O’Cain said.
“It was very very minimal. We did not have a mask requirement but we encouraged folks to do so, for their own personal safety and for the safety of our staff at the zoo and the staff and the animals we care for,” O’Cain said.
While wearing a surgical mask, Ashley Wheeler, 33, of Columbia, was at the zoo with her two young sons.
“If it makes other people feel comfortable, I’m OK with it,” Wheeler said. “I’m not extremely worried about the coronavirus for myself or my family.”
However, she admits her family doesn’t have any nearby older relatives. They aren’t interacting with too many people during this time.
Kathy Sanders, who came to the zoo with her adult son Pete Sanders, of Summerville, and his son, said she did not like the mask requirement.
“I hate it,” Sanders said.
Would she support a statewide mandate for mask wearing?
“I guess I would, if it were a known fact that it would reduce COVID,” Kathy Sanders said.
The coronavirus spreads from people in close contact with each other through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Wearing a mask helps prevent people who are infected, including those who may be asymptomatic, from spreading the virus.
Glenn and Linda Johnson, both 64, of Charlotte, visited Riverbanks on Friday, too. The North Carolina residents have their own mask requirement to adhere to as that state began mandating masks be worn in public places on Friday.
“I don’t have a problem (with it),” Linda Johnson said. “I’m protecting me and protecting other people.”
Early to mid-afternoon
Mask-wearing went from less than half to more than 80% within 24 hours at Columbiana Centre mall in the busy Harbison Boulevard commercial corridor, The State observed.
The difference between Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon was noticeable and striking.
Most store employees in the mall appeared to be masked Friday, as did most customers beyond the food court. A few still were bare-faced, including some kiosk employees stationed throughout the main mall corridor.
An employee at the Sephora cosmetics store stood outside the store’s door like a bouncer, monitoring customers who wished to enter. Anyone not wearing a mask was not permitted. However, he said, only three or four people so far on Friday had approached without masks, and they turned around themselves. The employee said he was surprised how quickly people had come to comply with the mask requirement so far.
Studies have shown the effectiveness of wearing masks. One study published in Health Affairs, a monthly medical journal that explores domestic and international health policies, estimates 230,000–450,000 COVID-19 cases possibly were averted between April 8 and May 15 in 15 states that had mask mandates in place.
Later Friday afternoon, McMaster addressed reporters from the Emergency Management Division headquarters in West Columbia, where he said it would “virtually be impossible” to enforce a mask requirement across the state, similar to the one neighboring North Carolina had just enacted statewide.
“These mandates are, in the end, are unenforceable,” McMaster said during the news conference. “It’s not the right policy for government. It’s not what the government needs to do.”
Instead of a statewide requirement, McMaster has encouraged people to take personal responsibility to socially distance and wear masks in public.
“Wear a mask, wear a mask, wear a mask,” McMaster said during his Friday news conference, a mantra he repeated on his social media accounts.
However, several cities around the state, in addition to Columbia, have taken it upon themselves to pass mask mandates.
Greenville is requiring people to wear masks in grocery stores and pharmacies. The city of Clemson put in a 60-day requirement on Thursday. Spartanburg is set to require masks be worn in public starting Monday. Charleston will begin requiring masks to be worn in public starting July 1.
Back out in the community during the afternoon hours, mask compliance in the city continued.
Afternoon shoppers
At the Target store on Harbison Boulevard, 70 people walked out of the store wearing masks in a 15-minute period, compared to 14 people not wearing masks.
About 5:30 p.m. at Whole Foods at Cross Hill and Devine, there were about 40 people in the store, everyone had a mask on. Across the street at the BI-LO, about 50 customers and employees were inside the store. Only about five people didn’t have a have mask on, based on a reporter’s observations.
“I think it’s irrelevant. I really believe it’s for comfort..., it makes you feel like it is helping out,” said 31-year-old Justin Waiters outside of the BI-LO after accompanying his mother while she grocery shopped.
Gloves would work better than a mask, he added.
“Everybody touches things,” Waiters said.
Outside of his job as a welder, Waiters estimated he did not wear a mask 90% of the time prior to the ordinance going into place. But he will wear one now regularly, at the urging of his mother who works for Prisma Health and because he doesn’t want to be fined.
Friday evening
As the dinner crowd began to arrive on Main Street on Friday, people danced at Main Course, while wearing masks. And those who were eating dinner still had masks around their chins or hanging off of one ear.
As the sun set on Columbia on Friday night, and college students began to head to the establishments in Five Points, most had masks with them, though some were carrying their face coverings ready to put them on when they interact with someone not in their close circle. Others wore their masks around their chins.
Ahmondria Davis, 21, a student at USC-Upstate in Spartanburg, was visiting Columbia on Friday. She normally wears a mask when she’s out and about just to protect herself and the people around her.
As Davis and her boyfriend, Ronaldo Martinez, walked up to the Baked Bear ice cream sandwich shop in Five Points, they realized they left their surgical masks in their car, and quickly retrieved them.
“I think it’s a good thing, to be honest,” Davis said of the masks mandates. “I know a lot of people may be out there and may be asymptomatic. I think the mask protects you and the people around you and that’s the safest thing possible.”
Alex Hall, a USC student who will be a senior in the fall, was with a group of friends who had masks with them. He had not been regularly wearing a mask before the local mandate.
“We were only with college kids so we didn’t see a need to,” Hall said.
Hall doesn’t like wearing a mask, but said the decision to have the ordinance is the right one, which he suspected would be a different opinion from his friends, who were on their way to Group Therapy.
“We would not be wearing it unless they put in the new law,” Hall said.
Saturday morning
Under the city’s ordinance, there are times when people don’t have to wear a mask, such as when people are outside exercising. About 9 a.m. at Columbia Canal and Riverfront Park, most people going for a walk, a bike ride or a run, while keeping safe distance from each other, weren’t wearing masks. However, as the the morning went on, more and more had face coverings with them, and some put them on as they passed another person.
Carla Nowicki, 31, and Scott Salwasser, 39, of Columbia, were among those walking around Riverfront Park on Saturday morning.
They weren’t aware of the mask ordinance, but regularly wear masks anyways.
“Whether it helps or not, I think it keeps people feeling like everyone else cares, which I think is one of the most important things, is people knowing other people care,” Nowicki said.
Salwasser said a mandatory mask rule is much better than a stay-at-home order. Mask rules can be a long term solution while allowing the economy to function.
“I think whatever prevents a stay at home ordinance, I would be in for,” Salwasser said. “Anything other than that, if it means wear a mask everywhere, it means wear a mask everywhere.”
About 10 a.m. at the Soda City Market, which opened for the first time since March, mask wearing was the norm. Booths were spaced 20-feet apart along Main Street rather than the pre-pandemic 6 feet between them. Some of the vendors wore transparent face shields allowing them to smile at customers.
VonGretchen Nelson, 45, the owner of Bessie’s Sweet Delights based in Blythewood, had a transparent sneeze guard installed at her tent to help customers feel protected.
She fears there will be another shutdown with the rising cases. Nelson said she wants to see a statewide mandate to wear masks, citing her underlying health issues of asthma and heart disease.
“If we don’t take control of what’s going on now, even though we’re behind the eight ball, if we don’t do things to try to take some of the precautions now, we’re probably back to shut down mode soon,” Nelson said.
This story was originally published June 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
