The coronavirus pandemic is taking its toll on the United States. There have been so many new confirmed cases of people infected with Covid-19 in the past couple of weeks that some states have paused rolling back quarantine restrictions. However, in other states, some businesses have reopened. Some of them ask that customers wear face masks when coming in through the door.
However, wearing a mask is now a political issue in the United States. Some Americans refuse to wear them because they believe it limits their freedom. But tired of people coming in without covering their faces, vintage clothing shop Antique Sugar in Phoenix, Arizona got the world’s attention after it put up a hard-hitting sign about wearing face masks.
Scroll down to have a read, dear Pandas. A small warning, though—the sign gets dark really quickly. Co-owner of the store Annamarie Sanchez told Bored Panda that she and her best friend, creator of the sign, and fellow co-owner Sarah Bingham have been answering thousands of emails, voicemails, messages, and comments. Scroll down for our full interview with Anna.
Antique Sugar reopened on June 1 and wanted customers to come in wearing face masks
Image credits: AntiqueSugar
Image credits: AntiqueSugar
Image credits: AntiqueSugar
Image credits: AntiqueSugar
The Covid-19 situation in Arizona is very serious, so it's natural that businesses want to protect their employees and other customers
Image credits: AZDHS
Putting up a nice sign didn't work for Antique Sugar...
...so they put up a more blunt sign that gets dark very quickly
Image credits: chrisilluminati
Anna told Bored Panda that the response the sign has gotten has been huge. "I’d say the mass majority is totally positive. In fact, most of our voicemails and emails are from the elderly who are thanking us for giving them a voice. This sign was never intended to go viral. It was posted to a personal FB page and someone shared it and so on and so forth. The amount of love we’ve received is incredibly overwhelming and unexpected," she said.
"As far as what it’s like to deal with, holy [crap]. It’s been a 24-hour job on top of our regular functionality. Very emotional but in a good way. We’ve been in business for 10 years and we’ve never dealt with this amount of immediate attention. Our IG has grown by almost 3k followers in just 24 hours. So you can imagine the messages we still need to answer."
Anna added that there have been some haters but she and Sarah have learned to brush off their comments. "These people were likely never to become customers anyway. If any of our existing customers want to choose to not come back, that’s okay. We didn’t mean to offend anyone. Just get the damn point across. We’ve been threatened with lawsuits, with reports to the ADA for discrimination, we’ve had our business get threatened to be burned down, we’ve been called names. Whatever. No sweat off our backs."
Not everyone was happy with the sign. But Antique Sugar had a snappy comeback
Antique Sugar reopened on June 1 and thought that a simple, pleasant sign, thanking people for wearing masks, would work out just fine. It didn’t.
The co-owner of the shop, Sarah, got into an argument with several customers who refused to wear masks inside her store.
“They’re like you know the masks don’t work right? Or something about carbon dioxide retention, thinking that it's bad for you to wear the mask or that you look stupid wearing a mask,” Sarah told ABC15 what the customers said.
“Nobody likes wearing a mask. This isn't fun. It is uncomfortable, especially here in Phoenix. It is hot, but it's literally the smallest gesture we can make,” she explained.
“I can’t put my employee and customers at risk. Some people are trying to make this some kind of political statement but people are not dying along party lines,” Sarah said.
Some people completely agreed with the sign while others thought it was wrong to put it up. We’d love to hear your thoughts about it, too, dear Readers, so drop a line or two in the comment section below.
Here's what some other people said about the sign
