Government Greg Abbott announced on March 2 that he was lifting the mask mandate. One week later, businesses of all kinds were allowed to open up to 100% capacity. Abbott’s mandate also says that people who decide not to wear masks can be punished by law.
Businesses in Texas have now become a kind of battlefield for wearing masks. There is nothing – legally – that tells people to wear a mask inside. However, private affairs may still, according to them, have approval to need masks.
For business owners like LaCombe, who just want to protect their employees and customers, they tell CNN that they have made malicious calls from strangers and that some have even received death threats.
“It’s a difficult situation to be in, but we have to stand our ground,” LaCombe said.
One owner says he received threats
Mike Nguyen, owner of the Noodle Tree restaurant in San Antonio, told CNN he was mentally, physically and emotionally drained.
He said he had done 20 harassment and threat reports in the past week. And it’s not just about the mask mandates either.
Nguyen also told CNN someone called him on Thursday, gave him his home address and told him they were coming.
“You could see the hatred in the voice and the anger in it that it was not something like someone just trying to roll around or play around. It was real. They meant it,” he said.
His employees were also harassed, they endured defamation and cursed by customers.
Nguyen told CNN he did not believe the governor had done enough, despite Abbott’s announcement that there was no room for harassment and vandalism.
“So all this happening, all that is being done to those who do not agree with what I said, you have proved me right,” Nguyen said. “I said it would escalate. I said it would cause confrontation, and it all happened, you know? And that’s it up to this point.”
Yet Nguyen says he is not outraged at the governor over lifting the mask mandate.
“If anything happens, the blood is on his hands,” he said.
“We’re doing something right”
“Everything was just social media and phones and we hope it stays that way,” he said.
LaCombe says from Monday that it does not have to charge any surcharge.
“If it becomes a need that someone is determined not to wear a face mask, we will leave them out of the restaurant,” he said. “Our main business decision was to let people know we were safe.”
However, this does not stop people from calling LaCombe and its employees to say that they can not wear a mask.
“By law, they do not have to wear a mask. We are therefore infringing on their freedom,” LaCombe said. “And I’m sorry, I’m not one to go there and infringe on someone’s freedom, but your freedom is whether you want to come in here or not. It’s your freedom.”
And his response to people saying they are chasing customers?
“Well, those are the customers we don’t want in our dining room,” he said. “We want the people who believe in safety and are looking for a safe haven.”
LaCombe did say that the woman’s constant phone calls upset her weeks ago and scared him to come to work. Since then, however, he has said he is looking forward to the calls.
“We’re been open since the pandemic started,” he said. “We have not had a single virus outbreak or reaction to the virus in our eatery since we were open and we have employees who have not been vaccinated yet, so we are doing something right.”
CNN’s Natasha Chen, Ashley Killough, Hollie Silverman, David Williams and Holly Yan contributed to this report.