It has been almost a year since face masks started becoming part of our must-have wardrobe. Many people easily adapted to the new requirements of wearing a face mask in public places, but some hold outs stubbornly claim medical exemptions or refuse to wear a face mask simply because they don’t want to.
The rules about where face masks are required vary depending on where you live, but if you live somewhere where the stores require face masks, no matter what you personally think about them, it would seem to be common courtesy to put one on before entering the store, not to mention that this simple face covering might even save someone’s life.
Of course, for people who don’t want to wear face masks or who can’t for real medical reasons, there are other options. These options typically don’t include shopping in the store maskless. Instead, you could have someone shop on your behalf, or you could have your groceries delivered.
One regular customer at a King Soopers grocery store in Parker, Colorado, has been shopping without wearing a face mask for awhile now. According to store employees, she’s a regular at the store, and she has been told over and over to wear a face mask.
Recently, the maskless woman must have had enough of being told to put on a face mask, and she took out her frustration on an innocent employee who was simply doing her job. When the grocery store worker told the maskless woman to put on the face mask, the maskless woman actually slapped her, and it was caught on security camera.
Watch the video below to see this incident for yourself and to learn more about this story.
Kim Cordova is the President of the local United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Cordova issued a statement to KDVR in which she called grocery store workers “heroes” and gave a suggestion for how to avoid future incidents like the one that happened in Colorado.
“Grocery workers are Essential Heroes and have been on the frontlines during this entire pandemic at great personal risk. They deserve to work in safe environments but unfortunately that hasn’t been the case. They often deal with customers who refuse to wear masks, overcrowded stores, and stores that lack appropriate and adequate cleaning supplies, among other dangers to their personal safety. To avoid assaults by customers in the future, employers need to provide paid qualified security guards at stores.”
Have you ever seen someone shopping without a face mask in a store where face masks are required? Do you think grocery stores need to hire security guards?