A woman shopper at King Kullen in Long Island threatened to beat up a supermarket employee after she was asked to put on a mask according to the guidelines in the state. The anti-mask shopper immediately took the request of the employee in offence and started screaming at her and at one point even threatened her with dire consequences.
The incident was captured on video, which has now gone viral. An increasing number of incidents of public confrontations over wearing masks are being reported across states lately. Many states including New York have made masks mandatory but many are often found not abiding by the guidelines laid by the authorities.
Furious and Agitated
The video shows an angry customer standing near a frozen food counter inside the store and can be heard going on a profanity-laced rant after one of the employees asks her to follow the New York mandate of wearing masks inside stores to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
The woman in a grey shirt and black pants starts yelling at a female employee who can't be seen in the video. The shopper claims that she was wearing a mask earlier and threatens to beat the employee up for acting like a "communist." However, she doesn't stop there. As another employee tries to intervene, once again making a request to put on a mask, she snaps at her saying that their weight is the reason they work in a grocery store.
This results in both the employees and the woman without a mask shouting at each other. However, the unruly customer continues with her rant. "Don't pull your communist bullshit on me," she screams at the essential. "I'll beat the f****** shit outta you!" she continues yelling.
New Challenge for Store Employees
The video of the recent incident has gone viral. One woman who responded to the tweet claimed one of the employees to be her mother. She wrote: "My mother didn't deserve to be screamed at for any of this," the daughter tweeted. "It's disgusting when someone can't respect another's own safety during a pandemic. Absolutely horrible."
Ensuring shoppers to wear a mask inside stores has come up as a new challenge for store employees. Lately, many have been subject to profanity-laced rants from customers after asking them to wear masks. The recent incident at King Kullen supermarket in Massapequa is just an example of employees being insulted and threatened by an unruly customer refusing to follow the New York mandate of wearing masks inside stores.
In March, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order mandating masks and social distancing in public places after New York State became a Covid-19 hot-spot in March. Since then, public confrontations over masks have time and again been reported.
At times even police intervention has been required. In one incident last month, a man was arrested after assaulting a woman in a bus in Suffolk County Transit near downtown Riverhead after she requested him to wear a mask in last month, Southampton Town.
