The Jewish community is horrified after a man called Subway workers "Nazis" when they asked for his COVID-19 vaccine pass.
The video was filmed in the Waiuku branch of Subway. It shows a man repeatedly calling two young Subway workers "fascists" for enforcing the law.
"I don't believe in a Nazi fascist state, okay?" he tells the Subway workers. "Do you guys want that for New Zealand?
"Are you okay with everyone having a vaccine pass?"
The staff remained calm and politely asked the man to leave the store.
The man then says, "do you want that for your children and New Zealand."
The staff again ask the man to leave the store, before he turns the camera on himself and starts encouraging his followers to boycott Subway.
"There you go, you can't buy a Subway sandwich because Subway is now a fascist organization," he says. "Ok, there you go I suggest we don't buy any more Subway sandwiches from Subway."
The man finally leaves the store shouting, "well done you are all a pack of Nazis", all while wearing a mask that said, "COVID-19 is state terrorism".
The chair of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand Deb Hart was horrified by the video. Hart said just because people disagree with the rules, doesn't mean those enforcing them are Nazis.
"We have all sorts of requirements whether it be drinking laws, smoking laws but those requirements don't make the business enforcing them Nazis. To say it does trivialises what the Nazis did. Not everyone you disagree with is a Nazi."
Hart said the man was a "bully" and if he wants to protest he should aim it at the Government which is requiring COVID-19 vaccine passes.
"People bandy about that people are a Nazi which is a shorthand way to say they are evil," she says. "Words matter more than ever and this is a false equivalent.
"He is a bully and his behaviour is bullying. If he wants to protest he has every right to but he might like to aim his attention on who is requiring these vaccination certificates, not workers going about their business."
Unite Union, who is the union for Subway, said the video is appalling and they are "disappointed" by the man's behaviour.
"Unite Union is unsurprisingly disappointed by the behaviour in the video," national secretary John Crocker told Newshub. "This is a perfect example of a micro-protest, where an individual has gone out of their way to harass and abuse innocent hospitality workers.
"This is an appalling tactic, as the abuse is directed at the frontline workers, who have no say in the situation - they are required by the Government to only serve vaccinated customers."
Crocker said workers should put their safety and the safety of their co-workers first.
Subway declined to comment. A spokesperson said they are "adhering to the relevant government guidelines as stipulated in the traffic light system".
This isn't the first anti-vax incident the man has been in.
In September, he recorded himself harassing workers at one of Auckland's mobile immunisation buses, subjecting the staff to a diatribe of anti-vaccination rhetoric.
