By ABIGAIL YOUMANS and JOE SCHROEDER, The Democrat

Sarah Payton and Cindy Keller’s parents have owned the Nashville BP since 1999, but these days, it’s not business as usual.

Employees are wearing masks and gloves as they prepare food and when they’re operating the cash register. They’re wiping down counters, door handles and refrigerators every hour. They also clean the gas pump handles, the outside water dispenser and anything with which people may come into contact.

“It’s just one more thing,” Payton said. “Especially having less employees.”

Many retail businesses throughout Brown County were required to close their physical shops in late March after multiple executive orders from Gov. Eric Holcomb. Some, like gas stations and restaurants, were considered “essential” and able to continue to be open with modifications.

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Others, like retail shops in downtown Nashville, had to make other arrangements to do business.

As these orders have begun expiring, businesses have been reopening over the past few weeks. Many have asked customers to take virus safety precautions, like wearing masks, keeping their distance from other shoppers, and not visiting if they feel ill — or at least have required staff to take measures to protect themselves.

Customers and staff have responded in varying ways.

Initially, new precautions at the store were met with some frustration. “We’ve definitely had some aggravated customers,” Payton said, about when they had to close the fountain drinks. “I just kept telling them it wasn’t our choice.”

In this small-town, privately-owned business, Payton said that it’s the locals that support and keep them afloat. “People don’t come to Nashville to eat at a gas station,” she said.

Since the state has reopened slowly, they’ve started to see more business, especially on Memorial Day weekend.

“Was it a normal busy holiday weekend for us? No,” Payton said. “But it was more of a normal day. “But you take whatever you can get.”

As far as people taking precautions or not, Payton and her sister said that they’ve seen a little of both.

“The oddity I’ve found is the people that go overboard and then people that don’t,” Keller said. She believes there is a lot of “myth and confusion.”

“I’ve had an older customer ask me if I was going to rob my own store, since I was wearing a mask.”

The Nashville BP’s staff has shrunk from 17 to six employees for awhile — all by their own choice. Some of the staff is older, and Keller said they didn’t want to be in the store for health reasons and employees just feeling uncomfortable. “We kept the same hours for customers,” she said, “just made it work as much as possible.”

The employees who continued working were between 16 and 22 years old, Payton said. “Being a little younger, I think they were excited to have an excuse for being out of the house.” Some of them were working six days a week.

“Quite frankly, I couldn’t afford for people to get sick and shut down,” Payton said.

One employee who has found more hours is Garrett Knotts, an incoming senior at Brown County High School. Adjusting to new changes and more regulations hasn’t been too bad. “It’s just extra steps,” he said. “You get used to it after a while.”

Payton’s parents are in their 70s and she has a grandma who is 93. “They’ve come in here and there, but in general we try to keep them home,” she said. “We took precautions before we had to.”

Payton’s personal opinion is that taking precautions is everyone’s choice.

“If you feel comfortable wearing a mask, wear it, if you don’t, then don’t,” she said. “We don’t make people on motorcycles wear helmets. A lot of the coronavirus (guidelines) are just common sense.”

‘Not an enforcement agency’

McDonald’s customers have been greeted with new plastic shields at the drive-thru and at the drink stations and registers in the lobby. Employees are also wearing masks and gloves.

Owner Michael Stieglitz said that even though the Centers for Disease Control doesn’t recommend wearing gloves, people — both employees and customers — feel more comfortable when they’re used.

“We do everything we can to meet state and local orders,” Stieglitz said. “We will always ‘plus up’ anything to put our people and customers’ health as a top priority.”

Stieglitz’s family owns several Indiana McDonald’s restaurants. The Nashville location has been significantly down in sales, but because of the drive-thru model, he believes they can weather the storm and bounce back quickly.

“We’ve taken a hit in this,” Stieglitz said, “but first and foremost the priority was to provide jobs and income to my people.”

The company gave a “thank you” bonus to those who worked through stay-at-home orders.

“I’ve seen with all six of our locations that our staff very much mirrors what society is as a whole,” he said. “We have a handful who are not worried at all, some who wanted to take a leave of absence and wait it out, others in the middle who were excited about PPE (personal protective equipment, like masks and gloves) and still others we were ready to get back to normal.

“They represent basically very different opinions.”

No one from any of the Stieglitz’s six restaurants has quit because they’re overly concerned, he said. Those on elective leaves of absence chose to do so because of being at-risk due to age, underlying health conditions, or because they were kids whose parents wanted them to stay home, he said.

Those who’ve chosen to stay home have been compensated, Stieglitz said, “just to say thanks for hanging in there and coming back to us — that’s been well received. I’ve been excited to provide that to our people.”

In addition to drive-thru and carry-out, McDonald’s is offering an “inside picnic” dining experience — with food in the to-go bags and limited seating in the dining room.

The restaurant is not at 50 percent capacity because the space is too small to allow both social distances of six feet and 50 percent of seating. The train area is also closed, and bathroom use is permitted to one person at a time.

Each night at closing, they do deeper cleaning.

Customers are responding to the changes in varying ways. “We’ve had several customers who don’t like the masks and gloves, because they don’t think gloves are good to wear,” Stieglitz said. Some customers have said that masks minimize the “friendly interactions,” since you cannot see a worker’s smile.

The vast majority, however, have been understanding and flexible, Stieglitz said.

Whether or not customers wear masks in the restaurant is up to them, he said. Stieglitz said he doesn’t want there to be any sort of contention between customers and staff.

“We’re not an enforcement agency; we’re a restaurant and hospitality service,” he said.

If someone asks for a mask, they will be given one. “We’re not going to have a mask station set up,” he said.

“People have the ability — and should be allowed — to make the decisions of what to do when they’re in public. I think that people are being cautious when cautions need to be taken.”

‘I don’t feel safe … anymore’

Vicki Percifield took many precautions when opening The Mercantile two weeks ago, requiring employees to wear masks and placing plastic guards in front of the cash register. She also has a sign at the entrance encouraging people to sanitize their hands and wear a mask.

So far, few customers have done this, she said.

“I was truly shocked when we opened back up,” Percifield said. “I was so happy to see my customers, but they weren’t wearing masks. I felt like, ‘I’m doing this for you; why can’t you do a simple thing for me?’”

Since reopening, the Mercantile has offered masks to uncovered customers for 50 cents, and even reimbursed the cost of a mask if the customer makes a purchase. Yet, Percifield estimates only 5 percent of the people who come in opt to wear them.

“We may have to put up a full-stop sign that the store doesn’t allow people without masks to enter, but the issue is, I don’t know who is going to be the one to strongarm people out of here,” she said. “I don’t have a policeman to stand at the door and help us.”

Percifield doesn’t think these people are not wearing masks with malicious intent, but rather that they are misinformed or do not believe in warnings from health professionals. She also fears that this relaxed behavior will lead to a second-wave of COVID-19 cases.

“I do have faith in humanity, I just wish we could all take the proper steps to safety,” Percifield said.

All of Percifield’s employees at the shop are over 50 years old, she said, and many of them are at high-risk for infection. As a result, she has been taking extra care when sanitizing work areas and spent $60 on sanitizer spray.

E-commerce has not been a viable option for the Mercantile during this time. Percifield said that much of her business is based on spontaneous purchases, making it difficult to sell online or curbside. She said she is happy to be operating again, but that she hopes a drastic change will come soon.

“We call this place ‘the happy place,’” Percifield said. “I want to be a happy person, and I am trying, but I don’t feel safe in my own store anymore.”

‘You can only control yourself’

The Educated Otter is a “touch store,” meaning customers want to hold and feel products before buying them. Diana Hostetler, the owner and sole employee, has had to rearrange the store’s layout to help guests keep their distance.

The store reopened the weekend before Memorial Day with rules in place requiring customers to wear masks, use hand sanitizer and not use their phones while in the store. Hostetler offered free masks to customers without one.

“People reacted surprisingly well to the no phone rule, but were less understanding when required to wear a mask,” she said. “I found that to be surprising.”

After a few days of being reopened, Hostetler had to remove her mask requirement because it was driving customers away.

“One customer came in and said, ‘I don’t care how cute your stuff is, I will not be shopping if I have to wear a mask,’” she said.

In response, Hostetler has implemented a few different online or isolated shopping experiences. Customers have recently had the option to schedule a shopping appointment in the store, ensuring customers that the store will not be crowded upon arrival. Hostetler, who has asthma, always wears a mask during these appointments.

She also has moved much of her inventory online, utilizing social media applications like Instagram and Facebook to market products and spread the word about her store’s buying options. She recently developed a new website for ecommerce as well.

Hostetler said that while she is open for now, she’s not sure what will happen in the future and is waiting for more information to act.

“What I have decided is that in this environment, you can only control yourself, not the customers,” she said.