Some people take protecting themselves from spreading COVID-19 very seriously. Some people follow the guidelines and safety best practices by social distancing, wearing face coverings and washing their hands. 

Other people take defending their freedom to not wear face coverings very seriously. Some of them claim they have medical conditions that prevent them from needing to wear a mask. Some of them simply don’t want to wear masks because they don’t “need” a mask. 

If this were a debate class in school, we’re sure there could be good arguments made for both sides of this mask or no mask issue, but science doesn’t lie, and there is a lot of great evidence that masks really do help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Regardless of what the law is, businesses can make their own rules. We’ve seen “no shirt, no shoes no service” signs for as long as we can remember. If a business decides that customers and employees should wear a face mask at their establishment, we should all respect that.

One customer at a Papa Murphy’s pizza restaurant in Kennewick, WA, entered the business without wearing a face covering. Another customer decided to start recording.

The maskless customer, who we will call “Karen,” claimed that she had a medical disability that prevented her from wearing a face mask, and she argued that she had a “constitutional right” to her pizza order. One of the employees responded that they have the right to refuse service to “anyone for any reason.”

As Karen argued with the staff at the restaurant, the person recording warned her not to get too close to him (remember social distancing?), and he ended up having to move out of her way. He also suggested that the employees call the police, which they didn’t.

Karen said that she had placed her pizza order online, and had already paid for it. She just wanted someone to give her the pizza, which they refused to do since she wasn’t wearing a mask. 

Finally, one of the employees told her that since she ordered the pizza online, she could just call them from her car when she arrived, and they would bring the pizza out to her car. The employee told her to go outside, and someone would bring her the pizza.

Watch the video below for more about this maskless pizza encounter.

Karen finally left. We can only assume that an employee brought the pizza to her car, but the video ends with a shot of a man (who was in the car with Karen) yelling at the camera, “I am doing my first amendment right.”

Do you think the employees should’ve called the police? Do you think Karen should’ve put on a face mask?