Mountain Times - Volume 49, Number 20 - May 13-19, 2020

6 • The Mountain Times • May 13-19, 2020
Vermont isn’t punishing Covid scofflaws, but
citizen enforcers are on patrol
By Colin Meyn/VTDigger
Some of the messages read like field reports: “The
sidewalks between Price Chopper and Walmart had groups
of people standing together no mask or social distances,”
and others like warnings: “I want to make you aware of the
health crisis that is ongoing at the floating bridge in Brookfield.
Since fish were stocked in the pond it’s become a daily
gathering spot of dozens of covid ignoring people.”
Others are more inquisitive: “Picture below shows people
at Roxie’s in Bomoseen, Vt., around 5 p.m. I am the only one
wearing a mask. Can you ask the Governor at his Monday
press conference what citizens should do if they witness
these blatant violations of his mandatory mask order?”
They all refer to a rapidly evolving part of our social contract:
compliance with Covid-19 public health guidance.
Peter Erb of Hinesburg emailed: “I just did a foray to the
recycling center and to get gasoline and probably not one
in ten people has a mask on,” he wrote on May 4. “We have
made too big a sacrifice for this to fail,” he added. “Governor
Scott must mandate face masks as we loosen up or all will
be of naught.”
The governor and attorney general have taken an intentionally
light-touch approach to coronavirus enforcement.
Scott often says he prefers to “lead,” rather than “drive” or
“educate” rather than “mandate”— even as he is taking
small but steady steps to reopen the economy and social interaction.
The governor “strongly suggests” that individuals
wear masks to protect other people from getting Covid-19.
That has made shame and public scolding two of the
main sticks in Vermont’s coronavirus compliance system.
From social media groups to news website comments and
official channels set up by the state, many Vermonters are
not only proudly falling in line, they are on guard, and going
public with their grievances.
Jens VonBulow emailed about a trip to Walmart on April
26. “As I waited in the truck I noticed that most people were
not wearing masks as they went in to shop. Some were, but
most were not,” he wrote, adding that his wife observed the
same thing inside, along with staff wearing masks around
their necks. “We won’t be going back to Walmart anytime
soon,” he added.
VonBulow said in a phone call last week that he considered
calling Walmart about the issue. “I just decided that
I wasn’t gonna waste my breath,” he said. “Because what
would they do that they weren’t doing now? I’m sure they
weren’t gonna buckle down and require people or ask them,
you know.”
Instead he emailed. “I just wanted to vent I suppose,” he
said. Asked about VonBulow’s account, Rebecca Thomason,
a Walmart spokesperson, said the company posts
banners, decals and other reminders around the store to
encourage compliance
with social distancing
and wearing masks.
“I understand that in
Vermont it’s not required,
but we are absolutely trying
to suggest and follow
that everyone is mindful
and and wears their masks for the sake of everyone,” she
said. “But at some point, we’re doing all that we can to make
sure that the public is aware and to ask that they follow it.”
Some big box stores, including Costco, are now requiring
customers to wear masks, a decision that has drawn
its own social media backlash. Walmart’s enforcement
philosophy is rather similar to Vermont’s. “I’d rather have
people want to do it for the right reasons than force them to
do it,” the governor said in an interview Monday.
He said that the state “ranks among the highest for
compliance” and has set up a robust testing and tracing
program to catch new outbreaks before they become
widespread.
While the low case data supports Scott’s lax enforcement
“Wouldn’t it better to do all we can to
prevent Vermonters from unknowingly
spreading it in the first place, rather than
limit the spread once folks are infected?”
Courtesy Vermont State Police
Citizens can report a violation at: bit.ly/vtviolation.
policy, many wonder if testing and tracing is better than
preventing future initial outbreaks with stronger mandates
for wearing face masks, for example. “Wouldn’t it better
to do all we can to prevent Vermonters from unknowingly
spreading it in the first place, rather than limit the spread
once folks are infected?”
asked a writer who wished to
remain anonymous.
If VonBulow had instead
turned to the Vermont
Department of Public Safety
or the Attorney General’s Office
with his complaint — as
hundreds of Vermonters have done — the companies could
have been among those who the AG has “reached out to…
to alert them that their activities – if accurately reported –
may be in violation and to request voluntary compliance.”
That list numbered seven as of Thursday, May 7, and
included three cosmetologists, one real estate agent, one
property inspector, one tattoo artist, and an oxygen supply
company, according to Charity Clark, the attorney general’s
chief of staff.
The April 3 “Attorney General’s Directive to Law Enforcement
on the Enforcement of Covid-19 Emergency Order”
also clarifies the available penalties: A civil violation of up to
$1,000 per violation per day and criminal violation of up to
$500 fine and/or up to 6 months imprisonment.
Citizens can report a
viloation at: bit.ly/vtviolation.
Local police departments
also say they are
getting calls, but haven’t
been much solace to
those seeking punitive
enforcement of Covid-19 public health guidelines.
As of Tuesday, police officers in Burlington “have not
undertaken any enforcement on this issue,” Deputy Police
Chief Jon Murad said in an email. But the department did
“sometimes have to navigate balancing neighbors’ requests
to check on others’ compliance (or lack thereof) with the
extent of our powers under the emergency order.”
Although the worst fate for these public health scofflaws
is a scolding, many Vermonters remain on patrol, online
and through official channels.
To enforce or not to enforce?
Apart from the governor’s observations that most people
are complying with his executive advice, he has also challenged
the notion that ordering people to wear masks will
“Your behavior is now affecting
other people...your freedom stops
where mine begins,” Hiliker said of
those not wearing masks in public.
inevitably increase compliance.
“Even with enforcement, it doesn’t mean that you’re going
to accomplish your goal,” he said. “Because then there’d
be resistance, then there would be people doing more reckless
things, possibly.”
Faye Hilliker, a recently retired nurse of 45 years living in
Newport, has done medical research on the effectiveness of
masks in stifling disease and she disagrees. She compared
coronavirus non-compliance to smoking indoors.
“You can’t, because your behavior is now affecting other
people,” Hilliker said. “And when you do that, your freedom
stops where mine begins. So, yeah, you’re the governor,
sorry, guess what that means, you make laws and you make
sure that they’re put into place.”
Hilliker said potential pushback on punishments like
fines could be tempered with a clear and creative public
service campaign — something like the “this is your brain
on drugs” ads of the late 1980s, or a PSA meme her daughter
shared with her about how pants protect us from peeing
on each other, and masks protect us from spraying on each
other.
“They don’t believe it, and they’re not stupid people, they
just don’t believe it,” Hilliker said of those in her community
who refuse to follow Scott’s guidelines. Why aren’t her
neighbors staying in line, like her? “I don’t know,” she said.
“I have racked my brain trying to figure it out because I was
very angry at first, and then I’m like, I gotta let this go.”
Peter Erb, the Hinesburg resident who took a foray to the
recycling center, said on the
phone Friday that he also
ventured recently to a lunch
spot in North Clarendon.
Apart from being in his 80s,
placing him well within vulnerable
age territory amid
the pandemic, Erb said he
was not particularly vulnerable to the virus or its effects. Still
he was disturbed by the experience: he said staff members
weren’t wearing masks, and were handling food without
gloves. He had planned to buy a sandwich, but decided
on a container of macaroni salad instead. “I figured there
was less chance of them handling that than the cheese and
bread and everything, and it was probably in the cooler for
a while,” he said.
Why did Erb go out for lunch despite the risks? “Probably
because I was stupid and hungry,” he said. “You know,
I mean I have a mask on, I distance, I have an alcohol spray
which I keep at hand and use.”
Among the governor’s reasons for avoiding punitive
coronavirus orders has been not wanting to further burden
Vermonters already coping with the many challenges of the
moment. Erb said he’d like to see the government enforce
the public health orders on businesses, simply by adding
masks to the “no shirt, no shoes, no service” policy.
“Governor Scott is clearly in control of what businesses
are open or not open, so the order shouldn’t be directed at
the individual. The order should be directed at, if you, the
individual, want to partake in this particular business, you
have to wear a mask, and if you don’t do it, fine, don’t do it,
that’s your choice.”
Erb said it’s also dangerous to have citizens enforcing the
rules against each other — pointing to violent incidents in
other states when citizens have attempted to enforce the
rules. In Michigan, a security guard at a Family Dollar was
shot and killed after he told a shopper to wear a mask. Erb
said he worried the coronavirus compliance divide, played
out nationally, could turn angry and politically partisan.
He also pointed to a more personal experience. “My wife
got into a fairly contentious discussion in a grocery store
when somebody wouldn’t back off, had no mask and just
wouldn’t distance,” he said. “And, you know, that’s a fairly
controlled situation, and, you know, in Hinesburg.”