As COVID-19 restrictions lifted, Bend businesses leave mask-wearing choice up to customers

(Update: Adding video, comments from Bend business owners)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Mask mandates and all COVID-19 restrictions in Oregon were lifted Wednesday, but businesses can still choose to enforce a policy.

Food 4 Less Store Director Aaron Price said he plans to stick with the revised state guidelines and lift all restrictions. 

"It's just easier,” Price said. "It just avoids a lot of issues which have been going on since, well March of 2020."

Oregon businesses are now free to go without requiring masks, social distancing and capacity limits, with the state at a 66.1 percent adult vaccination rate, closing in at 70 the percent goal.

Businesses still have the right to require masks and enforce other policies, but Price plans on leaving that decision to the customer.

"If you want to wear a mask, if you feel safer wearing a mask, absolutely we encourage it,” Price said. “And we'll even still continue to give you a mask, if you don't have one."

Still, business owners and employees alike are excited to see some smiles again, including Food 4 Less Manager Leesa Hicks.

“Well, I’ve been here for a year now, and it is literally my first time seeing everybody’s face,” Hicks said. "I was able to see my deli workers, who I haven't really even seen yet, and it just made me really happy to be able to show off our faces."

Kirsten Gilreath, owner of Ju-Bee-Lee, a boutique store in downtown Bend, also supports a mask-optional business strategy.

"We're really happy to see people's faces and to be hospitable and be able to welcome people in, like we used to before Covid,” Gilreath said. "It's great to tell everyone that they can take their masks off, especially with the heat outside. It just makes it really nice."

The Point Pub and Grill co-owner Jason Camberg says he's ready for that sense of normalcy.

"Customers, just getting people back to the restaurant, just getting things to start feeling normal again,” Camberg said. 

However he said, with the current hiring crisis, moving back to full capacity might take a little longer then he hoped.

All of the employees he does have are vaccinated, and he's not worried about these COVID-related changes.

"We haven't had any issues with people wearing them when they needed to, and I think moving forward, I don't think it's going to be an issue,” Camberg said.