‘I Woke Up in a Free Country’: Colorado Costco Customer Ousted for Not Wearing Mask Gives Comments
The Colorado Costco customer whose video of a May 16 run-in with a store employee went viral spoke to Storyful about the encounter.
An employee of a Costco store in Thornton, Colorado, refused service to a customer on May 16, after he did not comply with the company’s mask policy, a widely reposted video shows.
The video shows an altercation between a Costco employee, identified by his badge as “Tison,” and a customer named Garrett. Garrett can be seen holding his camera phone up to Tison, stating “I’ll just put you on my 3,000-follower Instagram feed.”
In response, Tison looks directly at the camera and says: “Hi everyone, I work for Costco and I’m asking this customer to put on a mask because that is our company policy.”
To which Garrett responds: “And I’m not doing it because I woke up in a free country.”
The Costco employee can then be seen grabbing the customer’s cart and walking away with it.
Garrett also posted a selfie-style video to Reddit after the incident, which he later deleted, defending his decision to not wear a mask and referring to those who did as “sheep.”
Garrett told Storyful that he has been isolating at home for the past two months and does not have COVID-19. He said that he believes requiring everyone to wear masks is unjust. “We should be moving forward as a country,” he added.
A Twitter user who identified himself as the Costco employee in the video said, “People of Twitter, thank you for all of the support. I was just trying to protect our employees and our members.” Credit: @therealcostcokevin via Storyful
