ENCINITAS, Calif. (KGTV) - San Diego County sheriff’s deputies were called out to businesses in Encinitas and Cardiff-by-the Sea Tuesday evening regarding a group of people not wearing masks and refusing to leave the stores.
Deputies responded to the Lazy Acres Market on Encinitas Boulevard around 6 p.m. Deputies say a group of about a dozen people were refusing to wear masks and yelling at store employees and customers. Management asked the group members to leave, but they refused. Deputies were able to get the people to leave the property.
Around 7 p.m., deputies were called to Seaside Market on San Elijo Avenue in Cardiff for another trespassing incident. Deputies say a group of people refused to wear masks and were yelling at store employees and customers. They were asked to leave but refused.
“They opened up some canisters of yogurt, some chips, just started eating it pretty blatantly throughout the store without paying for it,” Seaside Market General Manager Austin Davis, said. “(They were) throwing stuff around when we asked them not to. Again, just generally being disrespectful.”
Deputies were eventually able to get the group members to leave Seaside Market.
Davis says they will do what they can to accommodate customers without masks.
“We have free masks available for those that do not bring them, and for those that aren’t able to, we provide accommodations through Instacart or personalized shopping,” Davis said.
“Our team, our staff, has been working extraordinarily hard to take care of our customers and our community,” he added. “To have these strangers come in and openly mock us and openly mock the people we are serving for just trying to serve them; it hurt ... it hurt a lot.”
The sheriff’s department says no arrests or citations were issued.
