Some Restaurants Are Closing Again After Customers Throw Fits Over Wearing Masks
On Sunday, the management of Hugo's Tacos announced that both of its Los Angeles-area locations would be temporarily closing their doors again. "Our taco stands are exhausted by the constant conflicts over guests refusing to wear masks," Hugo's said在声明中. "Staff have been harassed, called names, and had objects thrown at them. A mask isn't symbolic of anything other than our desire to keep our staff healthy."
California currently has a statewide mandate requiring face coverings in public, including at restaurants. (Yes, the masks are allowed to come off when customers are actually eating their meals.) But the constant effort of trying to enforce that—and the abuse that Hugo's employees have had to endure—just got to be too much.
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“When you ask some of the customers, they get upset, they get mad. They don’t like to do that,” Executive Chef Nabor Diaztold KTLA. “At this point, it’s really important for us to put the safety of our crew first.”
Unfortunately, Hugo's isn't the only restaurant that has opted to close again, rather than allow mask-denying customers to jeopardize the health and safety of their waitstaff. Mexican Fiesta in Dearborn, Michigan, has shuttered its dining room and is going back to serving carry-out only.
"A very small minority of people just became really aggressive with foul language and pushing," Mexican Fiesta manager Sam Alvaradotold theDetroit Free Press. "Most of our customers have been amazing." (Alvarado had to call the police over the weekend when a third-party delivery driver refused to wear a mask and "got physical" when he wasn't allowed to enter the restaurant.)
Goodonya, a self-described "organic eatery: in Encinitas, California,has also由于其工人不得不忍受被要求戴口罩的顾客的“战斗威胁”，因此暂时关闭了。当周五重新开放时，它将仅出现。
On the other side of the debate about, well, communicable diseases and basic human courtesy, there's Basilico’s Pasta e Vino. The Huntington Beach restaurant has banned masks entirely. "[If] you enter the restaurant for dine-in, and want to wear a mask, you must remove it when sitting down," a managerwrote onsocial media. "If you are standing around inside and waiting for a table, or waiting inside to pick up food for yourself or as a third-party delivery driver, and you are wearing a mask, you will be asked to wait outside.”
It has to be ridiculously frustrating for restaurant owners to have to decide to close, especially since most of them have just been given the greenlight to re-open their indoor dining areas again. But the patrons who don't want to wear masks真的don't want to do it, and it can be uncomfortable for restaurant workers to try to enforce those policies. It can also be dangerous: An argument over the North Carolina governor's mask requirements导致枪击outside a Chili's restaurant in the town of Forest City last weekend.
Please wear a mask if the host or a member of the waitstaff asks you to. If that's not your thing, then maybe just get your meal to go, yeah?