Customer gives shop a bad Yelp review after being asked to wear a mask

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    Wahiawa, Hawaii (KITV) — Keoni Ahlo owns Teapresso Bar in Wahiawa. He says customers generally follow the COVID-19 guidelines that are posted at the store. Security footage taken on Sunday shows an employee asked a woman to wear a face mask, but the customer became angry, made an obscene gesture, called three employees ‘stupid’ and left. He said his staff — all in their teens — were shocked and shaken.

“For an adult to treat a minor in a way that we would normally not even treat another adult, it’s pretty wild to see,” Ahlo said. “And I think that’s just something that we all need to check ourselves and make sure that we know that when we’re dealing with someone who’s much younger than us, we have a big impact on how they react.”

Ahlo reported the incident to police and shared the experience on social media, which generated an outpouring of support for the young staff.

“For them to be persistent, and to ask nicely, we never want to engage and you know, agitate a customer, but at the same time, we do tell them that if they do not put the mask on, then kindly ask them to leave, they have to, it’s the law, we can’t serve them,” Ahlo said. “We’ve actually had situations where we’ve had customers come in and have refused to wear a mask and have gotten in our team members’ faces and they dealt with it really well. It’s never fun, and it’s never comfortable. But I think that we’ve shown time and time again, that we’re doing the right things. And I’m impressed with my team. And I think that they really stepped up. Some of these kids have never worked a job before. And now they’re leaders and they’re showing and setting a good example for the other new team members of what to do in the situation.”

He says the worst part was seeing the customer’s bad review on Yelp, which could potentially hurt his business and young workers. Ahlo reached out to the customer, who called his employees “zombie communists” in the review. That post was deleted and replaced with a shorter, but still negative review.

“We’re struggling as it is, like all businesses are. We’re working extra hard. We’re trying to do the right things,” Ahlo said. “When someone posts a one star review and starts calling you all kinds of names, that gets kind of weird. So we figured we would try and figure out what to do next because the kids don’t deserve that, they work too hard.”

Friends, Ahlo said, identified the woman as a local award-winning singer, who is also listed as the author of the negative Yelp review. KITV-4 reached out to the woman and asked if she visited Teapresso Wahiawa and wrote the review. She replied: “My lawyer has advised me against response.”

“It’s come down to anger, and almost a fury and bullying, when you’ve got young people who are manning these cash registers, trying to do the right thing for their boss, and you’ve got somebody in there going crazy, because they can’t put a mask on for five minutes to pick up their coffee or their tea or whatever they order. It just doesn’t make sense,” said Angela Keen, who manages the Facebook group Hawaii Quarantine Kapu Breakers.

Keen says volunteers from the group have been giving out free masks to encourage compliance. While residents typically comply, visitors are more resistant. She’s been lobbying for an official task force to do patrols and enforce the state’s mask mandate. It would take the burden off residents.

“There’s that hesitancy because they don’t know if they’re gonna get whacked in the face or spit on or yelled at or coughed on,” Keen said. “If somebody doesn’t do something about it, our residents are going to have such a distaste for visitors and tourists and it shouldn’t be like that, because tourists are never going to go away.”

“Let’s just have aloha and be kind to each other,” she added. “I don’t think we’ve lost aloha. … I think people are COVID’d out or on COVID fatigue, but it’s no reason to be angry. It’s a simple thing that can save somebody’s life.”

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