OPINION:
McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski, in an interview on CBS, said customers who don’t wear face masks inside the restaurant risk having police called to arrest them. And then he did that old Marxist propaganda thing and said for safety’s sake, “we also ask our customers to wear masks.”
Screw McDonald’s. There are plenty of other burger joints out there, ones that don’t serve customers a mix of deception and intimidation, along with their happy meals. No wonder the franchise is losing money and about to close 200 stores in the coming months.
It’s an “ask” until there’s a refusal. Then it’s time to call in the cops to enforce the “ask.”
Classic leftist tripe: Pretend the enforcement is voluntary.
But this from a restaurant dude whose total livelihood depends on customers and customer satisfaction? Kempczinski needs a lesson in courtesy.
“We’re spending a lot of time right now in our restaurants making sure we can keep our crews safe, making sure we can keep our customers safe,” he said, Fox News reported. “We’ve for quite some time required our crew to wear masks, but we thought that in light of what we’re seeing, it’s prudent now that we also ask our customers to wear masks in the restaurant as well.”
Who’s “we?”
That’s another classic liberal messaging strategy to shield the real decision-makers from accountability. As CEO, Kempczinski is obviously the decision-maker; the buck stops at the top, as they say.
He went on: “If someone is unwilling to wear a mask and comply with our rules, that might be where we might bring in law enforcement.”
Yeah?
There’s a come and get me coppa moment just waiting to happen. Sounds like a challenge. Sounds like an invitation to eat at Burger King — or any other fast-food restaurant that doesn’t threaten its customers with arrest.
It’s one thing to want to keep staff and customers safe from a virus. It’s another thing entirely to threaten to call police on customers because they don’t wear a face mask — a face mask that isn’t required by law, a face mask that may cause health problems for some, a face mask that isn’t scientifically sound in terms of offering the purported health protections.
If McDonald’s, as a free market business, wants to issue policies on staff uniforms, fine. So be it. If McDonald’s wants to try and impose those same mandates on customers, fine. So be it.
But a McDonald’s executive holds no power over an American citizen.
And threatening customers with arrest, as the call-cops-on-customers’ new policy seems to be, is hardly an advertising campaign that says, “Welcome.”
McDonald’s can keep its face masks, its dictates, its threats to customers — and its soggy fries. There are way too many other drive-throughs and fast-food franchises in America where people can eat without fear of arrest, and where customers aren’t regarded with hostility and suspicion by the very CEOs they made rich.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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