‘They bought booze and acted like it was a night out’
A DUBLIN shop worker has told how she was verbally abused by protesters on Saturday after she asked them to wear masks.
Sam, who works in a small shop near Dún Laoghaire Dart station, said she was left ‘physically shaking’ after the encounter,
She said the group of men, who were in their mid-20s, were buying alcohol and acting like it was ‘a club night out’.
‘I knew the second they walked in, there was going to be trouble,’ she told RTÉ’s Liveline.
Sam, 23, said she was in charge of the shift that day in her ‘small local newsagent’, and that around 1pm, when it was very busy, this ‘gang of lads’ entered the shop. ‘All came in not wearing a mask. It was as if they were getting ready to go to a club night out,’ she recalled.
‘The shop is already very busy. Our area would have a lot of elderly customers, it would [have] a lot of young families.
‘Obviously, we want to keep it a safe environment for those people to come in and feel safe to come into the shop.’
She said that when she approached ‘these young lads, they were very boisterous’. She added: ‘I asked them to put on masks repeatedly, and if they would not put on a mask, they had to leave the shop.
‘Two or three of them put on a mask and then the rest of them started with a bit of verbal abuse. They were saying all sorts of things and a lot of curse words as well. Very anti-garda and I was accused of doing a garda’s job on my €10-an-hour wage.
‘I was wished that I would end up with nothing and the shop would close. I was called various names and [they] said that Covid was a hoax.
‘They wouldn’t put masks on, and it was quite difficult to get them to leave the shop.’
Sam said it was a predominantly female staff working that day and that other staff were ‘quite intimidated’.
The customers were buying cans of beer and bottles of vodka ‘as if they were going on a night out or getting ready to go to a party’, said Sam.
‘I could have not said anything, serve them and had them leave the shop. But is that morally right, is that fair that they can go about and not have anyone say anything to them?’ she said.
She also said that she didn’t recognise the individuals, but that multiple times in the past she has asked people to wear masks and been met with a ‘hostile response’. ‘I’ve never had to tell another female to put on a mask,’ she said. ‘So far it is predominantly young men that I’m having this issue with.’