×

Vaccination screening for indoor service ends

Some businesses express relief as mandate is lifted

Signs about social distancing and mask-wearing are posted on the doors to Paia Fish Market on Front Street in Lahaina in November. The restaurant and other establishments with indoor seating will no longer have to check for customers’ COVID-19 vaccination status after the county lifted the requirement on Monday. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Businesses that hired workers dedicated solely to checking vaccination cards dropped the extra screening step on Monday as the county lifted rules requiring proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test for indoor service at bars, restaurants and gyms.

“We were pretty short-staffed anyway, but we literally had to hire someone to check at the door for several months, otherwise it would’ve been impossible,” said Anatol Eisele, manager and part-owner of Paia Fish Market in Lahaina, which offers indoor and outdoor seating.

For the worker checking vaccination status, the job sometimes meant standing at the door while customers scrolled through thousands of snapshots of luaus, beach days and trips to Hana to find the photo of their vaccination card taken months prior.

“Some people were very happy that we checked for (vaccination cards),” Eisele said. “Some people, they were not that happy. They came from states where it wasn’t required. It’s very difficult to make it right for everybody. But in the end we have to comply with the rules of Maui County.”

Mayor Michael Victorino announced Friday that the county would roll back the vaccine requirement for indoor service on Monday as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to decline. Victorino imposed the rule in September after a spike in cases over the summer.

As of Monday, Maui County was averaging 46 new cases a day, a 63 percent decline from the 123.6 cases a day it was seeing two weeks ago on Feb. 6, according to state Department of Health data. Hawaii as a whole was averaging 341 new cases a day, a 66 percent decline from the 998.9 new daily cases it was seeing on Feb. 6.

“We are happy to hear that the rule has been lifted,” Sandy Szymanski, owner of Marco’s Grill and Deli in Kahului, said Monday. “We received a lot of phone calls today with people asking if we are still checking, so there’s a lot of people, I’m assuming unvaccinated, that are excited to get back to indoor dining.”

Like Paia Fish Market, Marco’s also hired another worker to help comply with the county’s rules.

“I call it floor support, but it’s basically a host at all times to do the checking and to also disinfect the items and the menus that come off the table,” she explained.

Szymanski said Marco’s will still keep the position with the rollback of the indoor vaccine requirement, pointing out that it requires less experience and frees up servers to focus on their main duties.

Terrin Brennan, manager at Fred’s Mexican Cafe, said that the restaurant had been running “on a skeleton crew” without a hostess due to the pandemic. But after the county began requiring vaccines for indoor service, Fred’s had to make sure there was someone at the door every day to check vaccination cards.

“Of course we were excited to be able to welcome everybody back into our restaurant,” Brennan said Monday. “It’s good for business and it’s good for our community to be able to visit any restaurant that they want, vaccinated or not. We’re just excited to have people enjoy our atmosphere, our food and our ocean view.”

Fred’s was less impacted by the vaccine requirement because it’s evenly split between indoor and outdoor seating, but Brennan said that Moose McGillycuddy’s Pub and Cafe upstairs — which, like Fred’s, is owned by Moose Restaurant Group — will likely see a bigger uptick in guests after the rule change because it only has indoor seating.

Eisele said business at Paia Fish Market has been “pretty steady over the whole last year,” though it declined around October after the county tightened the rules and omicron began picking up steam shortly after. Part of the decline may have simply been due to the fact that people started staying home as daily cases numbered in the hundreds on Maui, he acknowledged. Businesses have to stay optimistic regardless.

“We had a couple of slow years, and then it’s going to be good again, and then something else will come,” Eisele said, pointing to inflation as an example. “There’s always something coming. You have to be optimistic. You have to make the best thing out of it.”

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper?
     
Support Local Journalism on Maui

Only $99/year

Subscribe Today