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ARVADA, Colo. (KDVR) — The indoor mask mandate in Jefferson County ended on Saturday, with many businesses opening up without signs requiring masks.

In Olde Town Arvada, the Rheinlander Bakery opened in the morning without a mask mandate. Customers and employees were given the option of masking, with a mix of both choosing to wear one and choosing not to.

“We’re excited things have improved with COVID,” Danielle Litherland, the general manager of Rheinlander Bakery, said. “We’re also selfishly relieved that we don’t have to wear masks ourselves anymore. We don’t have to reprimand people for coming in without it.”

“Some of us work more than 40 to 50 hours a week,” Litherland said. “It’s just a lot of time with our faces covered.”

The mask mandate was supposed to be in effect through Feb. 18, but on Thursday, the Jefferson County Board of Health held a special meeting to move up the date. The mandate expired at midnight.

Jefferson County now becomes one of the last counties in the Denver metro to drop the mandate. The move by the county public health board came just days after its director suddenly resigned a few days shy of a full year on the job.