//Owners who ban mask-wearing aren't playing by the rules – and that’s business | Gene Marks

Owners who ban mask-wearing aren't playing by the rules – and that’s business | Gene Marks

An independent restaurant in Utah has a unique approach to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Rather than requiring that its customers wear masks when entering and walking around the premises – as pretty much every other small business does around the country – the owners actually ban the use of masks.

That’s right: no service if you’re wearing a mask.

Yaks Cafe in Blanding, Utah, a town of about 4,000 people located in the south-east corner of the state, has been resisting the mask-wearing requirement even in the wake of rapidly rising Covid-19 cases and the dismay of local public health officials.

“We find it really saddening,” the county’s public health department executive director, Kirk Benge, told the