A Tennessee ice cream store owner allegedly refused to serve a 10-year-old autistic boy and his mother because they were wearing face masks.
The mother turned to Twitter to warn others. Her tweet has gone viral with over 22,000 retweets and 50,000 likes.
Lindsay Fogarty, @rarediseasemom, posted about the incident on May 13th, saying that the ice cream shop owner made her disabled son cry. In her tweet, she mentions that both she and her son are immune-compromised.
The ice cream shop, Kountry Kreamery, is located in Pigeon Forge, a tourist hub in the Great Smoky Mountains region. The town is also home to Dolly Parton’s amusement park Dollywood, and the Titanic museum.
Users on Twitter quickly dug up similar alleged incidents at Kountry Kreamery, with matching details of refusing service to masked customers.
If you’re wondering why COVID is surging in southern states, we were just refused service in Tennessee because we wouldn’t remove our masks when ordering.
— laura joh (@laurajoh_) August 19, 2021
Screenshots show that Kountry Kreamery once explained that their mask policy was to better hear customers over loud machinery, but other screenshots show a wider anti-mask stance.
On Yelp, reviews dating back to June 2021 detail similar accounts of Kountry Kreamery employees forcing patrons to remove masks.
The Daily Dot reached out to Lindsay Fogarty via Instagram direct message, and to Kountry Kreamery via email, for comment on this story.
