West MI Ice Cream Shop Owner Defends Teenage Employees Yelled at Over Mask Mandate
There are so many stories of people losing it over being asked to slow the spread of COVID-19 by wearing a mask. You've got the lady who peed in a Verizon store, the dude who wiped his nose on a store clerk, and now, apparently, people are making teenagers cry at an ice cream shop in Spring Lake.
Kelly Larson, owner of The Front Porch ice cream in Spring Lake, took to Facebook to speak up about the unruly customers and defend her staff.
She says in one day recently four sets of people yelled at her Front Porch employees, who are mostly teenagers, over the mask mandate. Someone even got so out of control, the police had to be called.
Larson points out that she, nor her young staff, created the mask mandate, but that they are required by the health department to wear them and so are customers.
She shares what she is hopeful will happen:
I want to see the other side of this pandemic. I'd like to stay healthy, see my team stay healthy and see my community stay healthy. I want to see all of our businesses survive. Wearing a mask is not a political statement in our store. It's what we have to do to survive today.
Larson tells Wood TV 8,
“I am not political. I’m an ice cream store. We serve everyone and we’re happy to do so... I have to protect my employees, I have to protect my customers and I have to stay in business. And if I don’t follow the law, I don’t get to stay in business.”
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said,
“If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.”
And right now, masks are required in Michigan. So please, mask up and don't attack kids who are serving you ice cream at their summer jobs.