11/01/2021
An anti-masker came into the ASC the other day, Laura Gritz was her name. She walked up to the counter mask-less and when Melanie asked her if she had a mask she threw a fit and argued that no one else was wearing a mask, (Ppl she was referring to were all sitting at their tables). Melanie proceeded to tell Laura Gritz that she needed to wear a mask when ordering and could remove it when she sat down and that we simply were following health dept mandates. When she did not comply we told her that she was putting our staff at risk. At that point she stormed out of the cafe and sat outside writing a review on Yelp. As you can imagine, she left a less than stellar review full of false statements in which she claims Melanie yelled at her. Anybody that has ever had an interaction with Melanie knows that she doesn’t raise her voice, let alone yell at anyone. We reported this review to Yelp (twice) and this was their response: “Our moderators aren't in a position to take sides when factual accounts differ. As long as a review appears to reflect the reviewer's personal experiences and opinions, while describing a relevant consumer experience, we'll allow them to stand behind their review”. Can’t say that I was surprised by Yelp’s response. I did think, surely there are numerous businesses that are dealing with Anti-Maskers like Laura Gritz and similar scenarios causing havoc small businesses like ours. I would have hoped that Yelp would help to support us to report and w**d out these idiots instead of giving them a platform to spew lies and negativity ALL because they don’t want to wear a mask. I guess that may have been a little naive on my part to think that Yelp really gave a s**t about politically charged issues seeping into our coffee culture. Shame on you Yelp! And Laura Gritz, shame on you! I don’t know what happened to feel justified in taking your anger out on small business like ours, what I do know is, it says more about you and your shortcomings than it does about us. The video shows Laura Gritz walking up to the counter and interacting with Melanie then storming out. Ironically she puts a mask on as she walks out?
