Salons. Grocery stores. Thousands of complaints against Kansas City businesses related to COVID-19.

With shifting public health orders to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, local businesses in Kansas City have had to adapt to requirements like a mask order and limitations on capacity. For the businesses that don’t always get it right, residents can make a complaint to the city.

And they have — by the thousands.

According to records requested by The Beacon, the city of Kansas City, Missouri, has received over 3,000 complaints about businesses failing to comply with the city’s COVID-19 health orders since March. Businesses range from grocery stores to golf courses to salons.

But the city’s data on complaints fails to include one detail: the name of the business.

When The Beacon asked specifically for names of the businesses included in the dataset, a response from a public records coordinator said the Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department — one of the agencies conducting inspections of businesses during the pandemic — uses Google to match addresses with the businesses instead of requiring that data directly from the person who made the complaint.

Read more: https://thebeacon.media/stories/2020/12/10/salons-grocery-stores-thousands-of-complaints-against-kansas-city-businesses-related-to-covid-19/