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A California woman making a stand against mask mandates is claiming discrimination after she was refused entry into an Orange County supermarket.
Gelson’s Market, a private business, now requires all customers to wear a mask. State and local governments have generally imposed this mitigation requirement with which retail outlets are complying.
The Internet is filled with videos of “Karens” hectoring others for not wearing a facial covering, but in this case and a handful of other cases, Americans are fed-up with contradictions and hype and they are pushing back. Legally, the store can impose rules, but this woman also has the right to make her concerns known to management. Here’s what happened:
After first interacting with a polite, apologetic employee who told her she couldn’t enter with a mask and that the store would provide her with one if necessary, the customer told the manager who was summoned to the door that “I have a medical condition that I’m not allowed to wear a mask, and I’m not required by HIPAA rules or regulations to disclose that.”
HIPPA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects individual health privacy.
While the manager reaffirmed that maskless-entry was prohibited by company policy, he offered to task a store worker with handling the shopping for her.
The woman, who identifies herself as Shelley Lewis in the video, declined, however.
“I have private things that I wanna get that maybe I don’t want you to see.”
Lewis accused the manager of discriminating against her and floated the idea of a lawsuit.
She was uncomfortable with the idea of giving up her credit card so that staff could buy her groceries while she waited outside. “I have private stuff I don’t want you to see,” she reaffirmed.
“I’m not going to do that,” she declared while filming the signage of the posted store policies.
While she was waiting for the manager to return with a business card containing the corporate contact information so she could follow up about the policy, she interacted with an enthusiastic employee who was cleaning shopping carts.
“You’re pretty chipper…Why are you happy?”
The worker responded that he was happy to be employed because he lost his bartender job as a result of the lockdown.
Lewis responded that “Well good, I mean, I’m glad you guys think it’s okay to like infringe on people’s rights here. You’re infringing on people’s rights.”
As the manager handed over the information, he told her, “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
Watch the video below we found posted on The Daily Mail:
The would-be shopper got zero sympathy on Twitter. In fact, she was brutally called out and ridiculed.
Some critics are doxxing her, which is a privacy-violating technique usually by trolls to bring even more public shame on an individual, while others have branded her a COVIDiot.
Last month conservative activist Candace Owens chronicled on social media how a police officer pulled her aside at Whole Foods for shopping at the trendy store without a mask.
She almost broke Twitter when she declared that the rule made no sense and that the coronavirus response was “spiraling into tyranny.”
At the time, she received backing from those who feel that this measure is a step too far and a result of the government feeding us bad info and scaring everyone half to death.
We’re living in a Totalitarian Police State
— John Betts (@JohnFromCranber) April 14, 2020
I’m a grocery store associate for a major grocery and I do not wear a mask, or gloves, or care if any of my customers do! This is absolute nonsense. I’m so over this!
— CLM4166 (@clm4166) April 14, 2020
Do you think wearing a mask is going to protect anyone from the virus. Do you know what they were doing before they go into these stores. I would be more worried about how many germs and nastiness is on people’s hands & bodies, then they touch all kinds of products in store.
— Paul fender (@AkaFenda) April 28, 2020
Remember, as C.S. Lewis warned, “Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
— Text Trump to 88022 ✝️🇺🇸⭐⭐⭐ 🇺🇸 (@K1erry) April 15, 2020
Lordy, our grocery now has directional signs on the aisles so you all go the same direction – like adults can’t figure out how to pass someone and still stay away from them! If it makes someone feel good…but it’s stupid!
— NO LNG on Railroads! (@smehiel) April 14, 2020
Although power-hungry, mostly left-wing politicians, have infringed on constitutional rights during the COVID-19 pandemic (which some have deemed a panicdemic), and legal challenges are already pending, wearing a mask — even if the science is mixed as to its efficacy — to buy food doesn’t seem like that a big a deal. Or does it? It depends on who you ask, of course.
Meanwhile,the science behind the lockdown is also coming under serious scrutiny.
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Robert@bizpacreview.com
Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, “a law school the basketball teams can be proud of.”
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