The US is a funny country. It does not behave like a highly advanced and highly literate society.
That’s because it’s not. America is a brain dead billionaire, a struggling wage slave, and a fascist in a trench coat.
Does anybody actually know what the restaurant’s policy is on masks and why they have it in the first place or are people just assuming things to rage over?
What reason could there possibly be to ban masks other than anti-science COVID denial.
I’d be afraid of this restaurant’s sanitary practices at this point. Do they believe in soap or is that also a hoax?
Actually it turns out I was right, you people did not bother to verify anything about this story and you’re just assuming stuff to rage over.
The restaurant in the picture is the La Tapenade Mediterranean cafe. This is a real restaurant in the O’Hare airport. This restaurant is a chain that is owned by a company called HMSHost, which a subsidiary of the big Swiss company Dufry. If you go to their website and look up their policies, you’ll notice that there is zero mention of masks ANYWHERE. Here is their website, you can verify it yourself:
I thought that my search was flawed, so I tried to look up articles reporting this story but I couldn’t find anything. The one and only source to this story is that Tweet. Which means that it’s very likely that this story is a hoax made up by some Twitter rando who wanted rage bait.
Which makes sense because it is highly unlikely for a big corporation running a company that runs chain restaurants in international airports to have a policy against masks, especially when the airport in question is in Chicago, which is one of the most liberal cities in America. You simply fell for the bait without questioning it.
Let’s hold up on the self-congratulations a second.
There’s a very long way between a multinational corporation’s published policy and the practice at street-level, even if yesterday is the only report (so far). Is this a franchise? What authority does the store have contractually, or in practice? Is the policy enforced? Is there a history of enforcement? Was this a rogue employee, maybe a recent hire, with a political motivation?
Did you check the original thread https://x.com/AmmahStarr/status/1804608613916328334 for the context of the discussion? Did you check the account for a history of “rage-bait” before dismissing this woman’s experience?
Skepticism is important, but caping for corps is seldom necessary. They pay people for that.
There’s a very long way between a multinational corporation’s published policy and the practice at street-level, even if yesterday is the only report (so far). Is this a franchise? What authority does the store have contractually, or in practice? Is the policy enforced? Is there a history of enforcement? Was this a rogue employee, maybe a recent hire, with a political motivation?
This just further proves my point though, you didn’t actually verify anything. Not only do we not know any of this for certain because the source didn’t provide anything, but people here haven’t even bothered to check the authenticity of the story.
The O’Hare website lists the restaurants at the airport and provides their website. The website provided for this restaurant is the HMSHost website. On there, they have a tab that lists their brands, and when you click on this cafe, it lists it’s locations. This suggests that the company directly operates their venues. However, their Wikipedia page says that company does manage franchises, but no source was provided for this claim. Based on the available evidence, it’s best to assume that the restaurant is directly run by the company. If that’s the case then their policies on their website are the ones that apply to the restaurants, and they don’t appear to have any sort of ban on masks.
In the thread you linked, this person claims that an employee demanded that she takes off her mask. She later in the thread mentioned to another user that the employee said repeatedly that “it’s the policy”. However, I haven’t been able to find such policies anywhere. If you can find then I would greatly appreciate a source. She provides no further details or context. Based on the available information, there are possibilities:
- There’s actually a mask ban somewhere in the restaurants policies, but that seems unlikely
- There’s a rogue employee with an agenda, but I also find this unlikely considering how this is resturant in an international airport in a very liberal city
- This story is simply made up
I personally think is most likely to be the case. That doesn’t mean that 1 and 2 can’t happen or didn’t, I’m just pointing out that the probability of this story being true is rather low unless we’re presented with concrete evidence that prove otherwise.
Did you check the original thread https://x.com/AmmahStarr/status/1804608613916328334 for the context of the discussion? Did you check the account for a history of “rage-bait” before dismissing this woman’s experience?
Did you follow your own advice? Because her account does indeed have a very long history rage bait type content and her thread provides little substance. She claims it happened but didn’t provide any details besides two very vague remarks about an employee and a picture of the resturant. This all could’ve happened, but the only thing we have is her word and based on her account history, her word is not that credible.
Skepticism is important, but caping for corps is seldom necessary. They pay people for that.
Raging over stories that have a high likelyhood of being false just because you hate corporations isn’t a virtue. Criticism still needs to be based on something real in order for it to be valid.
Criticism still needs to be based on something real in order for it to be valid.
And yet, in the end, yours only amounts to what you consider “likely”.
Well, I mean before COVID plenty of places banned wearing anything that obscured your face. Like if you walked into a bank wearing a ski mask, you’re probably gonna have a bad time.
It’s a restaurant anyway… You gonna eat with a mask on? The ban is kinda unnecessary because it would resolve itself once the mask wearer has their food.
Could be that they’re worried that the people who got through security and had their luggage and bodies checked for weapons and identity confirmed may rob the place if they wear a mask
Actually after doing some research on this story, there’s a very good chance that it is fake.
Does anybody actually know what the restaurant’s policy is on masks
Yes, the owner of that restaurant is a conservadpshit moron. Thats the policy.
The doctor should have rambled about facial recognition
I get it, but if you’re worried about covid, why are you eating in a restaurant?
It’s called being sensible. Like… We all take risks when we go out, but it’s like wearing a seatbelt. Does it eliminate risk? No. Does it reduce risk and is low risk in of itself by wearing it? Of course.
And ultimately, the insensible thing is banning masks.
It doesn’t really reduce risk much because you’re literally about to take it off anyway in that same space.
If I’m in transit on airplanes and in airports for 8 hours and I wear a mask for 7 of those hours, the one hour (or probably less) that I take off my mask to eat a meal doesn’t completely negate the good that wearing a mask does for the rest of the time. I’m still reducing my risk (or the risk I pose to others around me) for 88% of my travel time.
Cool, but we’re not talking about those other 7 hours.
There’s a huge difference between sitting at a table by yourself (or even with a family member) and, say, sitting next to a stranger in an airplane. Walking through the restaurant and keeping the mask on so as not to catch or give anything in passing is sensible. Greater distance means lower risk.
I’m going to take a wild guess that the infectious disease doctor knows better, but by all means please proceed, Mr. Dunning-Kruger.
K
Guessing he needs to eat and is away from home.
Takeout has been a thing for tens of thousands of years, not sure how you missed it
She?
Oop yeah
In a effin airport where people are wearing masks everywhere
I was traveling recently and got so many dirty looks for wearing a mask, only one at O’Hare.
And then I didn’t wear it enough and caught covid for the first time. (I should have known better in cramped tourists spots). Then I had a reason to wear it, especially while temporarily homeless.
Masking isn’t meant to protect you, it’s meant to protect everyone around you. It only protects you when everyone around you is wearing a mask.
It does both. Others more than you, yes, but it does help both ways.
Huh, looked it up, TIL. Blame the disinformation campaigns 🤷♀️
I had actually bought masks in 2018 because I was tired of getting sick every third flight. And then chickened out and didn’t wear them because it just wasn’t done at the time, at least outside of Asia.
Ended up donating that box to my primary care when supplies were short at the beginning of Covid.
Yeah a friend of mine noted one good thing out of COVID was that wearing a mask would be normalized here in the US. (She is susceptible to respiratory issues, so she has to be careful.)
Unfortunately…we did not see the current idiot backlash coming.
I don’t care what anyone says I hated wearing the mask when I had to wear it but I didn’t catch COVID when I was wearing a mask. I know people say masks don’t work but I didn’t catch so much as a cold for the two years I had to wear the damn thing so if wearing a mask is going to keep me from the plague I’ll take the freaking ugly looks from the unwashed masses that are stupid as shit.
Masks certainly do work. Hospitals used them for decades pre pandemic for a reason.
You know you just said that and it is literally the first time it has ever occurred to me. Because I hear these people make the masks don’t work argument and okay fine they don’t work sure I didn’t get COVID or sick while I was using one though…
And to point out that hospitals use them and it does significantly reduce infection. Why the hell would anyone care what anyone else is wearing…
Like for example I like monster magnet… They are a b level stoner rock band that I thoroughly enjoy and they gladly talk about drugs and evil and whatnot in a dumb stoner rock story way right. I have a shirt on the back of it says it’s a satanic drug thing you wouldn’t understand… I don’t wear that shirt out often or ever yet because quite frankly I feel like it’d be inappropriate to wear because there’s kids and polite company about. I’ll wear it to a death metal show if I’m going to go to one but I’m not going to wear it on an average Tuesday. As long as it doesn’t affect anyone else why would you care In this case my shirt could be offensive to people and I understand it and that’s why I don’t necessarily wear it. But a mask doesn’t offend anyone unless the front of the mask says something asinine… If people want to wear masks let them who cares
Because I hear these people make the masks don’t work argument
The thing is that they hear doctors say “Masks don’t reliably protect against disease” and go “masks don’t work”, but what the doctors say is “they aren’t 100% reliable, so don’t use it as the only method of protection”.
But if wearing a mask vs not wearing a mask lowers your risk of infection by 50%, that’s a huge deal! And with the way infections spread, that’s millions of prevented points of infection.
Monster Magnet are cool.
You are a friend… If you like monster magnet I can send you tons of an amazing amount of really good music in that same vein…
Please do! Love music. Love new stuff.
A friend’s kid brought home Covid and they didn’t catch it because they masked up for a few days in their house.
At one point in Dec of 21, five folks all had it, all near me. Masks suck and rule at the same time.
it’s crazy how conservatives are just an opposition party. Are the dems for something? Then conservatives must be against it!
they’re all just children with severe behavioral disorders
They’re an opposition party that’s prevented the people of the United States from passing any significant legislation since 2010. We don’t have a country anymore.
Americans are a stateless people thanks to dark money. Buckle up.
Since we’re stateless I guess I’ll go get an abortion and stop paying rent.
That government doesn’t really serve the people. Does it serve us to stop women from having abortions? Does it serve us to allow housing to be an investment vehicle?
(This is a question about your perspective and not a gotcha)
When has a state served the people? Is it no longer a state if it’s like most of them?
Last time approximately 2010, when the Obama administration got some kind of health care bill through Congress and Mitch McConnell decided to respond by completely destroying the representative democracy I was just talking about.
The way that people react to safety guidelines like rebellious teenagers would be almost hilarious if it didn’t get them killed.
I see so many “rebel canners” that are proud that they do shit like dry canning, because the FDA tells them not to. It’s so cool to get botulism because you don’t like daddy government telling you what to do.
The mask bans seem to be that same kind of childish reaction - “you made us wear masks! We’re going to make you not wear masks!”
This is what being a reactionary actually is. It’s not saying “completely tearing down the status quo will hurt a lot of people we wish to protect.” It’s saying"I have no ideology besides opposing you."
The GOP’s entire idiology is “trigger the libs” and “enrich the wealthy even more”
Ironically, people in the GOP cult are very easy to trigger, but they will never admit it.
This is true both ways.
I always say conservatives have oppositional defiant disorder. How else could you constantly oppose things that everyone else thinks are a better way to live?
Conservatives often answer polls in favor of positive things, but publicly state their opposition to Democrats trying to do those things and elect Republicans who actively tear down anything that works. It is madness.
Conservatives often answer polls in favor of positive things
Because they see themselves as good, reasonable people. They don’t act like it, but they believe they do.
That and they want things as long as the Dems aren’t the ones who get credit for doing it.
I have real issues with whether ODD is real, but I thought the same thing.
Conservatives don’t have ODD. They’ve just taken individualism to its logical conclusion and declared anything that remotely inconveniences or challenges them - whether real or perceived - is absolutely unacceptable.
I think you’re giving them too much credit. It’s not a philosophy that they’ve just taken too far. They’re just fed a constant stream of hate and propaganda that even if they think they like an idea, republicans just give it a name with the word “democrat” or “socialism” attached and start talking about how “THE LEFT WANTS TO TAKE AWAY YOUR FREEDOM TO LET LITTLE KIDS STARVE” and then suddenly they’re pro little kids starving.
I think you’re over interpreting the “just” here. This behavior is horrible and destructive for society. Let me be crystal clear there.
The point is that the US puts this heavy emphasis on “rugged individualism“ that a lot of other countries do not. This leads to an inherently selfish outlook that over-prioritizes my convenience/comfort.
We have a cultural problem, not an epidemic of some psychological classification/disorder/etc.
Have you heard of the Abraham Accords?
they’re all just children with severe behavioral disorders
I understand the intent of what you are saying, but please don’t call them all children. They aren’t. They are adults who should know better and should think critically and are fully responsible for their actions. I think it’s important to call them out and describe them exactly as they are.
Well before covid, I knew Republicans would politicize almost anything. Covid made me realize I was wrong, because they will politicize literally anything, even a fucking virus.
Idk, she’s black?
FORCING people to wear MASKS is ANTIFREEDOM!
-Republicans trying to make Divorce and Contraception and Gay Sex and Interracial Marriage and Women’s Healthcare and Kid’s Healthcare Illegal.
As someone that thinks masks work, I got a few takes on this.
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In the USA, a private company can legally refuse service to anyone for any reason except a legally protected reason. If a company doesn’t like your shirt they don’t have to serve you. But if they don’t like that you are gay they have to say they don’t like your shirt, if they don’t serve you because you a gay, thats illegal.
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While it’s stupid that they won’t serve the doctor wearing a mask, wasn’t the doctor going to take their mask of like immediately after sitting at the table to drink something while looking at the menu? At the very most, they would take it off to eat the food right? So they were denied service so that they could at most wear a mask for like 15 mins while they wait for the food to be made.
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If you have to take you mask off to eat, is it really worth it to keep you mask on for as much as possible? Assuming your intention is not to spread disease from yourself to others, how much more harm would an additional 15 mins cause? I honestly don’t know but if it’s non-trivial, perhaps eating at a sitdown restaurant (which normally takes longer) is morally wrong. Although, not as morally wrong as denying service to someone wearing a mask.
That was my first thought. Isn’t indoor dining the riskiest thing you could do during the pandemic?
With regard to your point 1, I think a business y should give up some of its freedom to filter patrons, if it’s doing business in a place like an airport.
Just like a vendor at a stadium shouldn’t be able to individually discriminate, because they’ve made their business part of a larger system.
Great example of actively harmful rhetoric that attempts to undermine the fact that masking works.
I don’t see how. Since the covid pandemic I wear masks if I’m sick or know I was around someone that’s sick and I have to be somewhere with people. But it would be so much less possible harm if I just stay home during that time. So like if I felt like I needed a mask, I would either not go traveling or I would wear a mask and not eat in public.
The point is that you can’t wear a mask while eating or drinking so it’s literally 10-15 minutes you’re actually talking about wearing a mask in the restaurant.
What if the doctor was just going in to get takeout? Or just plain wants to wear a mask while they’re not eating? Whose business is it but theirs? I thought Americans believed in freedom.
Yes I agree, they should be allowed to wear a mask when ever they want. And I’ll always avoid a business that has some kind of terrible policy like this.
I’m more honestly asking, as someone that does wear masks and avoids going out if I feel sick or know I’ve been exposed. How much benefit is the 15 min wait it will take to prepare the food?
Half the country’s definition of freedom is their right to impose their will onto everyone else.
The other half’s definition of freedom is being able to say whatever bullshit comes to mind and not having it challenged.
No, that is the same half.
Ah and there it is, the self report.
Try just fucking saying what you want to say next time, you little coward.
Playing your cute little misinformation game trying to blend in with the same folks. Fuck outta here.
Which is ironically the exact opposite of the intent, freedom but not fucking with others freedom too.
To your first point: the person could be wearing a mask because they see immunocompromised in some way, which would be a protected class (disability). You can’t refuse to serve someone because they’re disabled and wearing a mask as medical equipment to supplement their ability to move about in crowds, just like you can’t refuse to serve a person because they’re disabled and using a wheelchair as medical equipment to supplement their ability to move around in crowds. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Hey that’s a great catch.
A store shouldn’t deny entry based on something someone does for the benefit their health.
The whole point is to minimise the risk of infection of others. Masks do that by limiting the amount of virus you spray info the environment with every breath. The longer you have the mask on, the fewer virus-laden droplets get out, the lower the viral load is for everyone around you.
So to answer your question, yes, keeping the mask off the whole time would have been measurably worse than keeping it on before and after eating. No, getting a meal at an airport is not ethically wrong even if you have to take off the mask to eat and drink. Wearing the mask for as long as possible is the right thing to do because it offers the best chance of not getting other people sick; taking it off to eat balances your needs with the safety of others.
If everyone masked like this (even if it was just when they know they’re sick, instead of always), many fewer people would get sick when they go flying.
Well, science has also shown that environments devoid of pathogens tend to produce people with allergies and autoimmune disorders. So maybe if everyone wore masks and nobody ever got sick, we’d have a society of people with allergies and autoimmune disorders.
science has also shown that environments devoid of pathogens tend to produce people with allergies and autoimmune disorders
It’s actually the other way around, with viral infections being one of many causes of autoimmune diseases.
Masking doesn’t render the air “devoid of pathogens”, it just reduces the amount of pathogens you’re spraying into the environment while you’re contagious, and provides some filtering of the air you’re breathing through your mouth and nose.
Our immune systems will still get “exercised” by fighting off the pathogens we do encounter, but they won’t necessarily be so easily overwhelmed since we won’t be constantly inhaling more and more virus while our lymphatic system is busy fighting off the replicating viral bodies that have already gotten in.
Yeah that makes sense.
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I can’t even imagine being so insecure that I am threatened by someone else wearing a medical mask.
This is what happens when you don’t club fascist idiots with baseball bats whenever you see them. Now tell me about how we have to protect their “free speech”.
How would you know who the fascist is unless their free speech is protected?
Why would you want to know who the fascists are? If you do then that means you gave them power. In the US fascists not only have free speech protections, they have greater free speech rights than anyone on the left. They were given- through federal legislation- the power to control all media outlets. Fascists will never allow leftists to have a platform. Centrists will never allow it either. There is no practical reason at all for the left to defend free speech for Nazis, yet they continue to do so.
Notice “free speech” is in scare quotes. The previous comment isn’t suggesting that free speech should not be protected. But rather they referring to the fact that many fascists claim that to criticize them, or to refuse to promote their views is to stifle their free speech.
The same way my ilk once dealt with organized scabs, torture out of the first few and them shootup thei meating place.
Meating place sounds like some kind of porno
Yeah, taking precautions to protect your health and the health of other does sound like anti-freedom. Is it still legal to wash your hands in the USA, or are they cracking down on that too? It’s surprising that kind of stuff was allowed to continue for so long.
Only thing that is approved is full spectrum light bulb up the ass, and Lysol shots with a Clorox chaser.
If you can’t afford Clorox, store-brand bleach is fine.
Classic Antifa/leftist/woke propaganda trying to destroy America. Corporations are people, especially the ones that donate/have financial ties to politicians
I say it every day: I FUCKING HATE PROPAGANDISTS!
We have those assholes to thank for this… Gotta keep Republican voters, what better way than to make them frothing with rage at whatever Democrats suggest we do…
Huh??
I share your hatred but that likely isn’t what is happening here.
Put simply, someone fucked up. At an airport, the competing concerns of health and security are in their most extreme tension. For some reason, someone on staff skewed security when they should have skewed health.
There is no excuse for it, and guaranteed it has already been resolved or soon will be. This is in one of the busiest international airports in the world, and masks are still very common in air travel, particularly from countries like Japan - and I believe this restaurant is even in the terminal that ANA flies into. Restaurants simply cannot afford rent if they intentionally impose restrictions like that on their customers.
On the flip side, this is precisely why I say .ml needs to be dealt with swiftly. They protect hexbears, and hexbears openly state that they are engaged in information warfare with the rest of the fediverse. They are literally over here protecting right wing propagandists and everyone is like “well ok just don’t click on their shit if you don’t want to see it.”
Yeah, I’m not worried about myself falling for this nonsense. I’m worried about my family and coworkers doing shit like this because they are taking the internet seriously.
Masks don’t prevent the spread. Make sense now? Did you get vaccinated? Then you can’t catch it, right? Does it make sense now?
Since you’re getting downvoted, I’ll explain.
Mask don’t stop anything, they slow it, drmatically. Why do you think medical professionals have been wearing masks for 100-years?
The vaccine doesn’t guarantee immunity and viruses mutate. Any given vaccine is good only against a particular strain. And some people can’t take the shot. By wearing masks, we were helping protect them a well.
You seem to have fundamental misunderstandings of how both masks and vaccines work. I recommend reviewing basic materials to avoid further embarrassment.
