‘No muzzles allowed’ – shop owner puts up signs banning face masks
A shop owner in Chichester has put up signs saying face mask-wearing customers will be banned from entering.
J Voke Vintage Tearoom owner Michael Schneider branded face masks as ‘Government muzzles’ which provide ‘no protection’ from Covid-19.
In the signs, titled the ‘cona-virus notice’, Mr Scheider said customers ‘cannot shop here’ if you ‘consent to government demands’.
However, clarifying those comments to the Observer, the café and vintage shop owner, who is medically exempt from wearing a mask’, said ‘people are free to do whatever they want’.
He added: “If they feel safer wearing a mask, wear a mask. If they believe they have to wear a mask, they are wrong and I will try to put them right.
“It’s just government advice, it’s not the law. “A mask offers no protection. There was no risk assessment. I believe in human rights.
“If I was losing customers because of my posters, I might have changed my mind but I am gaining customers.”
Mr Schneider has been visited by Sussex Police and Chichester District Council after complaints from the public.
A spokesperson for
Chichester District Council said: “We have received some complaints about the face covering signage at J Voke Vintage Tearoom and these have been passed on to Sussex Police.”
Sussex Police confirmed that it would be taking no further action as Mr Scheider, in conversation with officers, said that he ‘wasn’t actually going to refuse entry to anybody wearing a face mask’.
A spokesperson said: “This first came to our notice in July when a city PCSO, routinely in contact with local shopkeepers and businesses, spoke to the proprietor having seen the notice. “He told the PCSO that it was just his belief that they shouldn’t be wearing them because he believed that Covid-19 was a fraud and didn’t exist. He was neither asked nor directed to remove the poster.”
The UK Government has made it compulsory for face masks to be worn in shops and supermarkets, unless you are medically exempt. You are expected to wear a face covering before entering and must keep it on until you leave unless there is a reasonable excuse for removing it.