Heated exchange between cashier and mask-less customer at Lethbridge grocery store caught on film

That includes businesses like London Road Market.

McNeely said she calmly asked the customer to wear a mask, citing store policy.

The customer went on to tell the teen that she had a medical condition, which made her exempt from wearing a mask.

“I [proceeded] to tell her, ‘no, because we don’t have medical exemptions in our store. You have to put a mask on or leave,” McNeely told Lethbridge News Now.

This resulted in a heated exchange between the two, which McNeely said went on for about 10 to 15 minutes.

“I can’t even count on all my fingers and toes how many times I asked her to leave,” she remarked.

After much back and forth between the two, the general manager of London Road Market, David Gurr, arrived on scene to address the situation.

“It was pretty chaotic. It definitely caused me a lot of stress that night. I really didn’t think it would but the long-term of the adrenaline rush that I went through – the next day, I was feeling like garbage,” McNeely remarked.

“I mean, you deal with it when you work in a grocery store, especially when it comes to this [COVID-19 health guidelines] and it’s unfortunate that we have to deal with it, but it’s a part of working here.”

She said London Road Market received a few phone calls the following day, with customers who witnessed the exchange praising McNeely and her fellow employees for how well they handled the situation.

“That feels good to know that the bystanders saw it too and saw that this woman was definitely over-dramatic, and I did a good job, because that definitely made me feel a lot better about myself.”

General Manager David Gurr told LNN that London Road Market has had to deal with similar incidents like this in the past.

“We’ve had four people that have been served with trespassing notices and fines, on top of that,” Gurr said.

“The fact of the matter is, Alberta Health [Services] has mandated masks with various limitations on why you cannot wear a mask. The City of Lethbridge has a ‘loosey-goosey’ bylaw that is arming these people with excuses and the fact is, we need to protect our customers, we need to protect our staff, in my case, I need to protect my business and as citizens of Lethbridge, we need to help Lethbridge.”

Gurr commented that the incident Wednesday evening was “embarrassing for Lethbridge and embarrassing for Alberta”.

McNeely added that Lethbridge Police were called and attended the scene as well.

LPS confirmed their attendance to LNN, saying the female customer left the scene before they arrived, but officers located her shortly after at her residence.

“The subject claimed she had a medical condition preventing her from wearing a mask,” LPS told LNN.

“Police did not ticket her, but gave her a verbal warning [that] she would be fined for trespassing if she re-attended the store.”

Both Gurr and McNeely noted there are signs at the store’s entrance telling customers that face coverings are mandatory if they plan on shopping inside.

“The fact of the matter is we need people to wear masks. The fact is that everybody’s here to do it together. We’re only going to get through this together,” Gurr said.

He added that if the customer in question was infected with COVID-19, that would have put his staff and other customers, as well as the broader community at risk.

“I have to protect my staff, I have to protect my customers [and] I have to protect my business,” said Gurr.

“Having [people] come in without masks on, potentially spreading diseases is not beneficial for anybody in that spectrum.”

McNeely said the woman told her that she had a medical note, which exempted her from wearing a mask in the store. However, that note was never presented to staff.

The cashier filmed the interaction, which has since been uploaded to the social media platform TikTok.

Obnoxious anti-masker in Canada harasses a 17-year-old cashier pic.twitter.com/Y1lgtLuVzp

— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) February 4, 2021

McNeely explained that her original video was about 10 minutes long and she only wanted to show her close friends and family. However, the initial clip was too long for her to send to her friend, which led to her uploading it to the social media site.

It’s since picked up steam online. Although she did feel remorse after posting the video, McNeely has since seen what kind of awareness it could raise.

“People like this need to have consequences for their actions and they need to be seen,” she said.

“I didn’t mean for it to blow up at all and when it did, I actually got very anxious and was like, ‘oh my gosh’ and I deleted the original video, which was then too late because everyone screen-recorded it and sent it out.”

Gurr added that Alberta Health Services has contacted the shop, with a complaint from a customer about another customer not wearing a mask.

“For us, we work off of health permits and the potential for them to pull the health permit off me is within their right. If I don’t have a health permit, I’m not in business, which means we’ll have loss of revenue, loss of staff and loss of inventory,” he said.

“If we have people that are bucking the trend [not following guidelines], they’re putting my business in harm’s way. I have the right and the duty not only to customers, but to my staff, to make sure that A, they’re kept safe and B, they have a job, because I think they appreciate being paid.”

The general manager said anyone who does not want to wear a mask can still shop at London Road Market, but they just can’t physically go into the store.

The store has options available for everyone in the community. Residents can shop online through the market’s website and can even phone in their orders for curbside pickup. The grocer also offers an at-home delivery service.

McNeely said she informed the customer of those options.

“There are very few businesses out there now in the city of Lethbridge that do not have an option of curbside pickup, in-store pickup or delivery. There are tons of options out there,” Gurr added.

“In the case of people who refuse to wear face masks, who say it’s a Constitutional right that they don’t have to or whatever the reason may be, you know what? You don’t have to come into the business…there are so many options for you to choose from. Especially here, we have many modes for you to choose your groceries.”

Gurr said if anyone is concerned with how they get their groceries at London Road Market, they can call him and set a pickup service that works best for them.

“We want to sell groceries,” he said.

“We don’t want to push people away but at the same time we have to go back to the realization that we are in a pandemic, this isn’t getting any better for the foreseeable future and we need to do everything we can to help each other out and actions like this just don’t help anything out from a medical standpoint, from a personal standpoint or from a mental standpoint.”

by Justin Goulet/ LethbridgeNewsNow

Heated exchange between cashier and mask-less customer at Lethbridge grocery store caught on film

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