To enforce or not to enforce?

What leverage will breweries have if a customer decides to ignore the rules? The Brewers Association’s June 5 industry communiqué, “Encouraging Staff and Customer Social Distancing Compliance,” boils down to head the problems off at the pass. Establish clear communication on what is and what is not acceptable behavior before customers even sit down.

For a good example, head to Twisted Pine. They check you in at the host stand, scan your temperature, explain how to get to the bathrooms, how to order, hand you a bottle of hand sanitizer, and then escort you to your table. It’s effective and clear — which will be crucial over the next couple of months because the inverse could get ugly. As Dave Query of the Big Red F restaurant group put it in an email from May 18: “Telling an adult to ‘put your mask on’ is a different game. A Target employee had his arm broken last week by a customer for uttering those exact words. Lots of confrontations on the trails and sidewalks and supermarket aisles from the wearers and the non-wearers of masks. Put those opposing viewpoints in a more confined restaurant dining room, and you have the potential of all sorts of issues arising. Add alcohol, and it’s a mask party of the wrong kind.”