Staff at a Tauranga New World are being praised for their "patience and restraint" while dealing with an angry, maskless shopper.
A video posted to social media shows two New World Gate Pa staff members calmly asking an aggravated customer to wear a mask or leave. The mask mandate is in line with Government COVID-19 restrictions requiring people to wear masks when out accessing essential services under all alert levels except the lowest.
The video was filmed on Friday, August 27 when the entire country was under alert level 4 restrictions. It starts with the woman filming a staff member as she rants to them about germs and accuses New World of "breaching human rights" by asking her to wear a mask.
The staff member in the video calmly tells the woman she needs to wear a mask but this doesn't seem to register with the woman who continues her rant about "censorship". The staff member continues to patiently explain the mask rules again.
The woman then says she has "common sense" and has "children who've been sick, grandchildren who've been sick". Once again the staff member calmly explains to the woman she must wear a mask but instead, she says she will leave claiming she "cannot breathe" while wearing a mask, but doesn't say she has a mask exemption.
A spokesperson for Foodstuffs, which owns New World, praised the staff member for their "incredible patience and restraint".
"We would like to say a thank you to the team at New World Gate Pa who showed incredible patience and restraint towards this customer who was behaving in a very rude and unreasonable way.
"It continues to be mandatory for all New Zealanders to wear a face-covering when visiting an essential service and therefore, following this breach, the Police were called and attended. The safety of our customers and teams is a top priority for us - and abusing our staff is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
"We appreciate the protocols in place make shopping a bit challenging and we ask all our teams are treated with respect, they are simply doing their job to make sure New Zealanders stay safe," they told Newshub.
Police confirmed they were called to the store for a "breach of the peace" at 10:50am.
"It appears a customer was not wearing a mask and was abusive toward staff. She left the supermarket and no further action was required by police."
The woman isn't the first to harass supermarket staff who are just trying to do their jobs.
Earlier in August a Pak'nSave security was praised for his calm handling of an irate, maskless customer.
