Dori: Mandates drop but fight continues at Burlington mask-optional café

While mask mandates are dropping in Washington on March 12, interest on fines levied against Billy’s Café in Skagit County continue to swell – penalties owner Bill DeJong vows to continue fighting.

After a Friday morning phone conversation with the state’s Department of Labor & Industries, DeJong told The Dori Monson Show that the clock now stops on any new fines. However, he is unclear how the state is going to handle the backlog of $389,760 in fines and continuing interest he has been slapped with since last May.

“We’re going to fight it,” DeJong told Dori on Friday.

However, DeJong said he doesn’t plan to do that through appeals. In his mid-February interview with the Burlington business owner, Dori told DeJong that L&I informed him of an appeals process and that DeJong had missed or ignored those deadlines.

“I’m not appealing what I can and cannot do, or that someone in my restaurant can or cannot do,” DeJong explained.

When state L&I officials first reached out to the Burlington business owner, reminding him of Gov. Jay Inslee’s mask mandate, “they told me it was for safety violations and necessary for public health.”

“I say ‘prove it. Tell me the law that I’m breaking,’” he described. “It’s not a law; it’s a mandate.”

Did the growing fines and threats worry him?

“It was hard making decisions before the public actually knew what was going on,” he said, speaking to what was happening at the beginning of the pandemic. “My wife and I would stay up at night asking, ‘are we jeopardizing our kids’ future?’”

Once the couple saw “how many people stand behind” their mask-optional restaurant, he was reassured. They were encouraged by crowds of diners from throughout Western Washington who started filling his café alongside long-time locals, DeJong told Dori.

“We’re truly blessed,” he continued. “We love the Skagit Valley. We love Burlington. It’s a big family is what it is.”

In hindsight, Dori wondered, does DeJong still feel as if he did the right thing?

“Yeah, we did the right thing for our kids, for our customers’ kids, for our employees’ kids. If this happens again, we have to have more people stand up,” DeJong said.

Hear Billy’s Café owner Bill DeJong describe why he refuses to pay mask mandate fines:

Listen to Dori Monson weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.