You mean you haven’t heard about the Variance Protection Program (VPP)?

Neither had I until the last edition of the Business Times. According to an advertising campaign, the collaborators of the program — Mesa County Public Health (MCPH), the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce and the local, five-day-a-week daily newspaper — say it’s designed to highlight establishments working to ensure safety, especially for those who could be worried due to underlying health conditions or other risk factors.

In a column published in the Business Times, the executive director of MCPH highlighted the program’s importance, stating citizens want  “… to know the places implementing these safety practices as intended and taking precautions to protect the community.”

Who could argue with those ideals?

Forgive my cynicism, but aren’t both of the above objectives actually the adherence role of MCPH every day, especially during a “pandemic?” Isn’t that the role of any business on a daily basis? Wouldn’t a chamber membership have those kinds of basic requirements? Is there a second pandemic I missed of businesses making customers sick and killing off clientele?

I’ve witnessed business after business bending over backwards to accommodate and adhere to the myriad, ever changing, onerous dictates of health departments at the local, state and federal levels. I’ve also seen many business owners give up and say, “enough is enough.” Yet, three leading community entities see fit to advertise, promote and market only the select few who meet an extra level of standards as worthy of having clients?

After all, the op-ed in the local daily stated: “Customers have to observe the retail landscape themselves or rely on word-of-mouth warnings about places TO AVOID. There’s no source of easily accessible information about businesses going the extra mile to slow the spread of COVID-19.”  So the answer was to dismiss 4,000-plus businesses in Mesa County as “must avoid” and create only certain businesses as “must go to” based on the mask-demanding opinions of the creators of  the VPP?

Leaving out the irony none of the above entities have made the list as of the last ad, let’s look at VPP a little deeper. The op-ed in the local daily paper was written on July 15. That’s a day before Colorado Gov. Jared Polis came out with his mask mandate. I won’t argue the unconstitutional aspects of mask mandates, but I find the timing curious.

Let me put it into perspective. If the local daily paper believes everyone should wear a mask, it has every right to publish op-ed after op-ed stating its position. If the area chamber thinks members should enforce mask mandates, it can make it a requirement of membership. And if MCPH wants a mask mandate, it had every right at any time to put one into effect.

Now why did I write that? Simple. To qualify for five-star status in the VPP pre-Polis, a business HAD to mandate mask wearing even though it wasn’t yet the law. Then again, maybe one, two or all three of the program creators knew what was in the pipeline for our governor’s July 16 presser? Without the mask mandate, the Variance Protection Program had much less reason for a business to apply. Now, every business does. Even though it’s simply a list of standards MCPH has to uphold for all businesses in doing its daily job.

Another curious aspect of VPP from the local daily paper op-ed is how a restaurant — which mandated masks before the Polis edict — was doing “80 percent of normal revenue despite operating at 50 percent capacity.” According to the executive director of the MCPH, this “hasn’t hurt them business-wise.” Well, besides that 20 percent. Other than a busy night or special event, how many restaurants run at full capacity? Exactly. They all run on 50 percent or less. But they were all running at 100 percent of revenue before COVID.

I wonder: Did MCPH make any attempt to see how well a restaurant would perform without all the mandates? I guarantee above 100 percent. But since this is about masks, we’ll never know.

I’m not saying a business doesn’t have the right to mandate customers and staff wear masks. A business also has the right to refuse service or fire anyone refusing to wear one. Local government should protect those rights. The irony, no place of business I knew of mandated masks until Polis’ announcement — save the most-favored restaurant above. Why? Because businesses know mandating a mask will cause customers to go where they aren’t mandated or only recommended.

Cue Gov. Polis.

A final point about VPP being a “free market solution” and taking “government out of the equation.” One has to call MCPH to ask for an inspection. The inspectors are employees of MCPH. MCPH also makes the guidelines regardless of which government entity wrote them first. This is nothing if not a crony-based, government marketing program.

And you can see who it benefits the most. The three entities who should be fighting for Mesa County businesses to open as they see best for their clients.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.