Retailers Won’t Enforce Face Mask Rules Following Violent Confrontations
/Nearly every day there’s another story about a fight breaking out over the wearing of masks.
Only days ago, a Starbucks barista in California was allegedly punched in the face for asking the customer to put on a mask. In another confrontation, a New York man assaulted a manager and bartender after being asked to put on a face mask and in Michigan, a 77 year-old man was stabbed because he refused to wear a mask.
Some confrontations have turned deadly. A security guard at a Family Dollar store in Michigan was shot and killed in May after he told a customer to wear a mask.
A quick Google search will reveal page after page of confrontations over masks and now, many business owners and large box stores are deciding the fight just isn’t worth it.
Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, CVS, and Walgreens, along with other nationwide retailers, say they’ll serve customers even if they violate mask mandates. The retailers simply want to avoid confrontations between angry customers and employees.
The debate over masks has raged for weeks, with some demanding everyone don one while others find the orders intrusive. Social media exploded last week when Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who serves on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, was seen with his mask down while sitting shoulder to shoulder with two people after having thrown out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game.
A clear divide definitely exists in the mask debate. Despite the mask mandates being in existence across the country for well over a month now, there has been no real change in reported Coronavirus cases. While the number of reported cases have increased, unreliable data and reporting errors bring discredit to those numbers.
KPGZ News - Jim Dickerson contributed to this report