An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 27

In 2021, our state imposed a mask requirement but later reduced its scope to the unvaccinated. When the state announced the complete repeal of the requirement, the city imposed a functionally identical order to replace it. This led to a lot of people attempting to enter the mall in violation of the order, because the state’s repeal got far more publicity than the city order, and because many patrons were not local (we’re on a major interstate and get a lot of visitors off the highway) and so wouldn’t have been aware of news in the city.

Some customer service people (not the actual security guards) moved to the entrances and began demanding the little CDC vaccine cards from anyone not wearing a mask. Since our mall location is fairly near an entrance, we got to hear a gazillion variations on the same conversation.

Employee #1: “You can’t enter the building without either showing proof of vaccination or putting on a mask.”

Customer #1: “No, the governor repealed that. I don’t carry a mask anymore!”

Employee #1: “[City] has a health order about it, separate from what the governor repealed. If you don’t have a mask and can’t show proof of vaccination, you must leave the property.”

Customer #1: “I don’t want the vaccine! It’s my choice, and you trying to coerce me into undergoing a medical procedure I don’t want is unethical!”

Employee #1: “One of the consequences of your choice is that you’re still subject to the mask requirement, then.”

Some of these people managed to track down masks, and others decided to leave. Employees at the individual shops in the mall tended to get an earful from the former group. It’s not as if we had any say in the health department order, or in the mall’s enforcement of it, but having our customers come in already annoyed did not make us huge fans of either. Just being a sympathetic ear was usually enough to mollify the customers.

And then, one afternoon, it just stopped. It seemed oddly quiet but took maybe half an hour to figure out that the door guards had abandoned their posts, and the arguments and shouty customers had ceased. The health order hadn’t been rescinded that we’d heard of, so it was something of a mystery as to why.

The next day, we heard from the manager, by way of mall management, the following exchange, which was blamed for the end of the enforcement procedure.

Customer #2: “I don’t want the vaccine! It’s my choice.”

Employee #2: “One of the consequences of your choice is that you’re still subject—”

Customer #2: “I’m going shopping one way or another, but I brought this with me.”

The customer shows the handle of a pistol.

Customer #2: “You can choose to try and stop me, but remember that your choices have consequences, too.”

The employee decided that discretion was the better part of valor and did not try to stop the customer. The actual security forces were alerted, but with the description being “white guy in a tan jacket and jeans,” they didn’t have any luck locating him.

The police weren’t interested as no direct threats were uttered, menacing is a fairly low-grade misdemeanor that doesn’t usually merit much investigative effort, and displaying the handle of the weapon didn’t constitute brandishing. Mall management made the decision to scrap their hard-nosed enforcement policy as a direct result of the comment and replaced the doorkeepers’ stations with simple signage.

Related:
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 26
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 25
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 24
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 23
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 22