Allen County is completely open for business once more, following a decision by Gov. Laura Kelly on Tuesday, and given the response of commissioners.
In essence, following the governor’s decision, “Ad Astra: A Plan to Reopen Kansas” now constitutes a series of recommendations rather than a mandate.
It is therefore up to individual counties whether to maintain the Ad Astra guidelines as a mandate — with potential legal repercussions — or only as suggestions.
This latter route is the one Allen County commissioners have taken.
More concretely, this means that any business that has not been reopened may now do so, and any event that has been prohibited may occur, with any number of people in attendance.
There is nothing that cannot be open?
“Correct. Correct,” said commissioner Jerry Daniels.
For example, bars may now reopen, and weddings and funerals may occur, regardless of crowd size, though technically this is not advised by county officials or health experts.
“We really strongly encourage” residents to continue following recommendations put forward by the Health Department and governor, said commissioner Bill King, which include: social distancing, cleaning/disinfecting surfaces, washing hands and avoiding touching one’s face.
But as for enforcing any specific guidelines, “so far, we have not made that a mandate or ‘a must,’” King added. “It’s not an order.”
“We were reluctant to make it a mandate, make it a law,” King added.
One example King gave was the Elks Club, which until Wednesday was mandated to be closed following the governor’s Ad Astra plan. Now, it can be reopened at the owner’s discretion.
“Can they reopen now?” asked King. “I would suppose so.”
“We would prefer to make [the guidelines] recommendations, and would hope that people would be reasonable in the approach they took to this,” he said.
“We want everybody to be smart,” Daniels agreed, though he emphasized wanting to give businesses that had been affected by the shutdown the freedom to reopen.
Daniels also pointed out the importance of being courteous with regard to other peoples’ preferences, say, by respecting that others might want to adhere to more strict social distancing while in busy public places, and so on.
For instance, he gave the example of a customer getting a haircut requesting that their barber wear a mask.
