Months into the pandemic and many remain unconvinced of the virus’s severity. Recently, a 57-year-old store owner, Michael Schneider, expressed his dissent in his shop window.
His store, the J.Voke Vintage Tearoom, has been serving food, drinks, and second-hand items for the past five years until the UK’s lockdown in March. He reopened in June, at some point putting up the controversial sign that declares:
“No muzzles allowed in this shop.”
When he spoke with Metro.co.uk, Schneider claimed that masks offer “no protection” from the virus. Despite more than 41,000 people in Britain dying from the virus, Schneider still believes the coronavirus pandemic is a “hoax.”
“When someone walks into my shop,” Schneider elaborated to the Metro.co.uk, “I challenge them and say ‘How are you?’ They go ‘Very well’. I say, ‘Then why are you wearing a mask? Take it off’. They go ‘I don’t know.
I do accept people wearing a mask if I challenge them and they say it makes them feel safe. If that’s why they’re doing it, I allow them in my shop and I will serve them.
It’s not a complete ban if it makes you feel better or safer, come in no problem. It’s because they’re doing it of their own volition.”
Schneider also has a sign on the floor condescendingly prompting customers to reflect on the government’s control. In small print, the sign mockingly says that “You May Be Here Sometime.”
He insists that he’ll keep the poster because he ‘fundamentally believes down in my bones that human rights are being taken away’.
