COVID Conundrum — Navigating Confusing Times

By Peggy Taylor

To mask, or not to mask?

To dine inside – or stay out, in a sidewalk shed?

To require proof of vaccination, or not?

These are the questions businesses, museums, offices and Upper West Side residents are grappling with since the city’s “Key to NYC” Covid requirements were lifted last month, making masks optional and proof of vaccination no longer mandatory at restaurants, gyms, or movie theaters.

So: it’s over! Well, sort of. The city still urges New Yorkers to mask up in indoor public spaces and densely populated outdoor spaces, and it also allows businesses to set their own vaccination policies. So while the city no longer says you have to show proof of vaccination to dine indoors, a restaurant can still choose to have a vax requirement.

It can feel like we’re being talked to out of both sides of some official mouth, just as the new BA.2 Covid variant is upon us. And if you walk around the neighborhood, the messages are very mixed.

The managers of Harvest Kitchen and Cafe Fiorello, for example, will greet you maskless, but you’ll still see a mask on Manny Colon, owner of Manny’s Bistro, who says: “I like my servers masked because the guests feel comfortable when you approach the table.”

And like many local businesses, Joseph Pharmacy still has a sign on the door saying masks are mandatory, though if a customer refuses to wear a mask, “we can’t refuse them service,” according to manager Carlos Aguilar.

In a very informal survey this month, the Rag found there’s no longer any one-size-fits-all approach to Covid on the Upper West Side – just a potpourri of policies and practices. Here’s some of what we found:

At Harvest Kitchen, 269 Columbus Ave., manager Igor Segota is not only maskless; he greets diners with hugs and pats on the back. These days, “customers are more relaxed,” he says. “They’re asking for tables inside. They’re sitting close together, they’re kissing, hugging, expressing themselves in ways they haven’t been able to do in a very long time.”

But not everyone is resting easy, says Segota. “Some customers are still cautious and ask to sit outside or in an isolated section of the restaurant, and we do what we can to make them feel comfortable.”  Mask mandates no longer apply to staff, but Segota says about half of his “teammates,” as he calls them, still mask up for work.

“It’s up to them,” he says. “All of them are fully vaccinated and tested regularly.”  The restaurant still routinely disinfects tables and provides hand sanitizer. When one staff member got Covid recently, everyone was tested; the restaurant, says Segota, is “not letting our guard down.”

Cafe Fiorello, 1900 Broadway, encourages staff to follow the lead of manager Michael Vitanza, who greets customers maskless. “We want customers to see our smiles and our expressions,” Vitanza says. But half the staff still wears masks, he said. “I can’t force them to take them off, but it’s not the look the restaurant wants to project.”

Vitanza recalls how, under the city’s mandatory protocols, some customers got testy when asked to produce proof of vaccination and ID. “Some almost threw their cards at you. It took us a minute to check the cards, and since we service between 500 and 800 customers a day, you can see how much time we lost. It put us in a bad position to have to do policing before we could start the hospitality.”

Vitanza estimates that only about one percent of diners still feel uneasy about Covid and thus prefer to sit outside. Like others interviewed by the Rag, he said business is up in recent weeks; most reported a return to anywhere from 75-85 percent of the level of pre-pandemic business.

The look at Manny’s Bistro, 225 Columbus Ave., is different: owner Manny Colon still masks up for work and prefers that his staff do so, too.

“I feel more comfortable,” he says. “When you’re masked, you are protecting yourself not only from Covid but also from the flu and the common cold. Plus, masks these days are becoming more stylish.”

For those still leery of dining indoors, Colon has invested heavily in his outdoor “streetery,” dubbed the “château,” which has carpeting, electric heaters and a portable ADA ramp, all surrounded by wooden barriers filled with 2000 pounds of sand to make them solid.

The sign on the door of Joseph Pharmacy, 216 W. 72nd St., still says masks are required, but manager Carlos Aguilar says some customers refuse to wear one, and they won’t be turned away if they do. Customers are “less afraid than before and are coming to the store more, rather than calling for delivery,” he says.

At Tip Top Shoes, 155 W. 72nd St., all Lester Wasserman’s staff are currently masked. “But if we see more than 50 percent of our customers unmasked, then I’ll allow our staff to go unmasked,” says Wasserman. “At the same time, I don’t want to scare customers who are just returning to the store.”

On the day the Rag visited, the majority of Tip Top’s customers were masked, but Wasserman thinks that will change during the spring. “Winter was difficult with the Omicron variant,” he says, but in-store business is picking up and “people should feel more comfortable now that we have vaccinations and therapeutics.”

At Pildes Optical, 2165 Broadway, ”We are not as strict as we were at the beginning of Covid,” says manager Jean Roberty. “But we still highly recommend that customers wear their masks when trying on glasses. We have a few customers who are fussy about that, but for the most part they understand and are cooperative.”

During Covid, Pildes limited the number of customers in the store to four at any one time, but that number has now been raised to six.

At the New York Sports Club, 248 W. 80th St., a receptionist says “The entire gym has reopened —-classes, towel service, and sauna,” masks are optional and vaccinations are not required.

The AMC Lincoln Square 13 Theater, 1998 Broadway, used to post its Covid policies on its ticketing kiosks, “but we don’t even do that anymore,” says a box office clerk. “Masks are optional, and most moviegoers don’t wear them.”

And Upper West Side museum and entertainment centers are definitely a study in transition:  You don’t need to show vax and ID cards any longer at the American Museum of Natural History and the New-York Historical Society, but the American Folk Art Museum and the Metropolitan Opera still require them.

As for masks, they are still mandatory for staff and visitors at the Historical Society, according to an email from Marybeth Isle, director of public relations. And on its website, the Metropolitan Opera still lists some of the city’s most strict protocols: proof of vaccination (negative Covid tests can’t be accepted as an alternative), and the opera won’t accept neck gaiters, open-chin bandannas or mesh face coverings as fulfilling its mask requirement. In addition to its stringent policies, the opera holds the distinction of not having cancelled any of its performances during the pandemic.

So, clearly, Covid policies right now are a bit like the Wild West —ambiguous, nuanced, ever-changing, unpredictable.  But who doubts that, even with a new variant lurking, and the recent court ruling making masks on planes optional, New Yorkers can navigate and survive the confusion?