Originally posted February 12, 2021.
Florida grocery store owner Alfie Oakes shared a video Thursday explaining his mask exemption policy for his supermarket in Naples, Florida after a viral clip on Twitter showed no one in his store wearing masks or following CDC guidelines this week.
As #Flordia fights community spread of COVID on a massive scale, this is a 15-second snapshot of a supermarket in Naples. Many employees and customers- even older ones- with no masks on inside. Store sign outside cites “medical exemptions,” we can’t ask questions. @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/rNUSOPLjeB
— Sam Brock (@SamBrockNBC) February 3, 2021
The initial clip, posted to Twitter on Wednesday, offers a glimpse into Oakes Farms Seed to Table Market, where both customers and employees can be seen without masks throughout the store.
“We are the busiest store in all of Southwest Florida because we let people make the choice and most of the people choose not to wear a mask and that is personal responsibility,” Oakes said in the video. “If this was a very contagious deadly virus like the media wants you to believe, why are my 3,200 employees not fallen ill in the last year?”
Oakes goes on to explain that hundreds of people from around the country are moving to Florida every day because the state does not have any lockdown measures currently in place.
“I have never worn a mask in my life,” Oakes said. “We have 3,200 employees and everyone that wants to wear a mask can. Every customer that wants to wear a mask can, just most people choose not to and there is a reason for that because people are not dying. I know there are a lot of people that have been deceived up in the Northeast.”
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