Last week, Jacksonville, Florida-based-Southeastern Grocers, with over 500 Winn-Dixie stores located in seven southern states, said they would not go along with other major retailers in requiring customers to wear face masks while shopping in their stores, according to CBS News.
However, just a few hours after President Donald Trump tweeted that “it is patriotic to wear a face mask,” CNN is reporting the grocery chain changed their tune.
“Beginning Monday, July 27, we will be requiring masks to be worn by customers to help reduce the spread of [Covid-19],” Joe Caldwell, the director of corporate communications and government affairs for Southeastern Grocers — Winn-Dixie’s parent company — said in a statement, adding that the company believes wearing masks in stores should be mandated by the law.
“We believe that the enforcement should be placed upon our state and federally elected officials, and we will continue to work with our peers in the retail industry to advocate for this sensible mandate to be passed into law to remove the burden from employers and their heroic frontline associates.”
The wearing – or not wearing of face masks – has become a highly charged issue with President Trump and many of his ardent supporters. But with coronavirus cases surging in over half of the nation’s states, it is only sensible that people need to look out for each other.
