ANDERSON, Ind. — Good’s Candy Shop in Anderson is well-known for its 35 flavors of ice cream and peanut brittle, among other items on their menu.
Ask the Madison County Health Department about Good’s, though, and it will tell you over the past eight months, the candy shop is known in their office for a different reason.
“Lots of complaints,” said Madison County Health Department administrator Stephenie Grimes.
Grimes said since the pandemic started, the Madison County Health Department has received dozens of complaints about the business, claiming some employees and customers are not following the state’s mask mandate.
The mandate requires people to wear a mask inside of a business, unless they’re sitting down to eat or have a disability or health issue which prevents them from wearing one.
“We’ve been out there. We’ve called. We’ve emailed, pleaded, just nearly everything we can,” said Grimes of the department’s efforts to get the business to follow the mandate.
“They have been here twice,” said Good’s owner Randy Good of the health department’s outreach efforts. “They’ve been out here twice to see me personally...Now, if they have been out on other occasions, I am not aware they have."
According to Good, all of his employees, except for one who had a health exemption but no longer works there, wear a mask inside the business.
“She didn’t want the abuse from her customers. She didn’t like it,” Good says of the female employee who quit about two weeks ago.
Good said claims that multiple employees have not been wearing masks are not accurate.
Some people posting reviews and comments on the company’s Facebook page beg to differ.
Some of those people claim to have been in the shop and witnessed employees and customers not following the mask mandate.
One woman wrote, “Maskless staff are rude to customers. No thanks.”
Another posted, “No masks. Ignorant to food and health guidelines. 5/5 rating for catching Covid.”
There are positive comments, too, like a customer who wrote, “Best candy and ice cream around.”
Someone else posted, “'Good’ customer service and ‘good’ ice cream make for a destination spot!”
According to Good, he has had customers who have visited the shop and not worn a mask.
“If someone comes in without a mask, which is one out of every 30 people that don’t wear a mask, we don’t say anything,“ he explained. “If people do not choose to wear a mask, that is not my business. That is their business."
Good denies, though, any claim that his employees do not follow the mask mandate.
“Coming in our store and saying our girls are not wearing masks simply isn’t true,” Good said.
But an anonymous review on Tripadvisor from early October claims during a visit to the store, the customer complained after seeing employees not wearing masks.
The reviewer titled their post, “Want a side of Covid with that”, saying when he or she complained, employees working in the front part of the shop put masks on. The reviewer goes on to claim, though, on another visit, some employees preparing food in the back were not wearing masks.
Good responded to that review, saying in part, “Not once in all of Indiana, has this virus been spread from food or a food server.”
He also wrote, “Your hate and negativity is more contagious than any virus.”
Good finished his response, telling the anonymous reviewer, “Please, whoever you are, take it somewhere else. Consider yourself banned.”
13News asked Good about his response.
“There are some people who are just anxious to post something negative and I took the stand three months ago that I was no longer going to accept that,” Good said.
Another person who claims to have visited the shop last week sent 13News a picture of a sign he said is posted inside the candy shop.
The sign in the photo reads, “Please do not ask our associates about mask use. Per the Governor’s mandate, should an individual have issues with masks, they are exempt. Per Executive Order 20-043. We are under no obligation to reveal any personal medical or religious reasons for the non-use of masks.”
The sign invites customers who want to complain to contact the governor or Randy Good, the owner himself, and lists an email address.
According to the photo, the sign again makes the claim “Not once in the entire State has this virus been spread from food or a food service provider to a guest. Not a single case in all these months.”
“You cannot prove that it wasn’t passed from a food service provider to a customer. There’s a reason why we wear masks,” said Grimes of that assertion.
According to the Centers for Disease Control guidance about COVID-19, people cannot contract the virus from food.
Still, Good repeatedly insists his employees wear masks inside the shop.
“They don’t need me telling them to wear masks. The governor has already told them to wear masks.” said Good.
“And they wear masks? All the time?” asked 13News reporter Emily Longnecker.
“All the time,” said Good.
That wasn’t the case, though, in photos Good said he recently took inside the shop and posted on the company’s Facebook page.
One shows an employee holding up an ice cream cone. Another photo shows employees making peanut brittle. In neither of the photos are the employees wearing masks.
“I asked them to take their masks off for the photo,” Good explained, saying right after the photos were taken, the employees put the masks back on.
“Do you think masks prevent the spread, the transmission of the virus?” Longnecker asked.
“Yes,” Good replied.
Before interviewing Good, we got video of employees inside the shop.
Contrary to people’s claims and complaints to the health department that some employees do not wear masks at the candy shop, video we took showed everyone wearing one, except for Good, at least at the time the video was taken.
“Why would they say, though, there are employees, plural, not wearing masks?” asked Longnecker of the claims from people.
“You would have to ask them why,” said Good, saying he thinks it has something to do with comments he’s made about the mask mandate. “I think it was because I said I believe that an individual can make decisions for themselves. We do not need the government making them for us.
“It was construed as we don’t require or we don’t mandate or we don’t do this or that,” he added.
According to the health department, Good’s Candy Shop isn’t the only business they’re getting complaints about, where employees are supposedly not wearing masks, but it is one, according to Grimes, that has repeatedly been non-compliant.
“We’ve been out there. We’ve called. We’ve emailed. We follow up on all complaints,” said Grimes, explaining they are trying to work with businesses and don’t want to have to fine them or shut them down for not following the mask mandate.
“We don’t have the time and energy to spend on one particular business that’s constantly non-compliant,” said Grimes. “We’re just trying to do what we know, what we have to do to protect public health."
Wednesday saw 200 new cases of COVID-19 in Madison County.
“We’ve had over 100 cases (per day) for the past week,” Grimes said. “Definitely, that’s the highest we’ve had yet."