25/11/2020
Dear customers,
Since our page attracted unprecedented attention due to an incident happened early this morning, I feel like I should say something about it.
At about 7am, a customer walked in our cafe without a mask, so I asked him if he could kindly put on a mask. Generally at this point a customer would give 2 types of feedbacks, one being “sorry I forgot” and then pull out a mask from pocket and put on; two - “I have a medical exception”. Both are acceptable for COVID safe rules, given a number of customers do have medical conditions that I know of, so it’s totally fine.
“You are not allowed to ask me that.” This customer replied in neither way, with a dismissive tone, followed by some unpleasant words in a lower voice, which I cannot and do not want to repeat in here.
Frankly, I felt offended instantly, so I decided to turn away from him, and headed back to the kitchen.
He then yelled through the window between the counter and the kitchen, “What’s the point? Victoria now has no cases, what’s the point?” He then pointed at our COVID safe signs, “These... these signs are all illegal now, you should have updated them.”
I said, “The mask rule still applies when you are indoor like right now. You are welcome to read the rules carefully. They are available online.”
“Hey buddy, you can’t refuse service to a customer with medical exceptions, I can show you some legal documents.” He continued to yell through the window, pointing at his cellphone, “Or I’ll make your business go viral.”
So be it, I thought. “You are not welcomed here.” I said.
“Yeah I’m leaving.”
He left our shop, but returned after an hour while I was focusing on cooking, took a photo of me working in the kitchen and unaware of his return, and said “I’ll make sure you go viral mate!”
That was it.
Honestly, I always felt that having a medical condition is indeed a sad thing, especially during this time, because they have one layer short of protections against the virus, so we have always been trying to be helpful to these customers, and we really do have a number of them who would come everyday, but never had a problem. However, given the fact that we serve over a hundred customers daily, we are simply not able to remember every face and match their conditions. Most of the time, a common routine question, for the concern of health and safety of the community, with no intention to ignite an argument, should be answered in a respectful way. Moreover, having a mutual understanding in mind, medical exceptions should not be used as a weapon of privilege to attack those who are willing to obey COVID safe guidelines, because a safe environment is what we need the most right now after all.
At last, I’d like to ask that customer who remains anonymous but incited countless people to bad review our cafe a question:
Before you claim discrimination, did you pay an equivalent amount of respect to the person who serves you to begin with?
Sabre Cafe will continue to do business in a respectful COVID safe way. Thank you for your time to read this.
Daniel
