Photo: Amandalina Letterio
“No face masks allowed” reads the sign at Kelowna’s Sun City Silver and Gold on Bernard Avenue.
“It’s a cue to people who don’t know me that we don’t want them to wear a mask in a store with silver and gold on the shelves,” says owner Steve Merrill.
“The first concern is that someone will come in wearing a mask and put a gun to my head. My cameras in my shop don’t see those idiotic masks,” he added.
Merrill says it is dangerous for any retail store with products on the shelves for shoppers to wear masks.
“Sunglasses, makeup, whatever – this COVID opportunity is a shoplifer’s wet dream,” he explains.
Merrill says he doesn’t wear a mask when he goes out. “I feel that my right to breathe fresh air exceeds someone else’s right to be afraid of the common cold, which is the COVID flu.”
Despite his personal approach to masks and the sign on his door, Merrill says if you walk into his shop with one he won’t stop you.
“If someone were really sincere it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. If I recognized them and they were afraid of COVID-19, I would of course allow them to come in, don’t get me wrong,” says Merrill.
Merrill tells Castanet that if government officials stop by his shop to enforce the wearing of masks, he will refer to the British Columbia Commission on Human Rights, which says traders take their word for those who claim they cannot wear a mask due to a medical exception should take.
“What a thief,” he says. “Well, you don’t come into my story with a mask on.”
Some jewelry stores in the Okanagan have only asked customers to briefly show their faces to the surveillance cameras upon entering and then return to shop with masks on.
Merrill made headlines last year after being sentenced to 90 days in prison for failing to file four years worth of income taxes. During his trial, he tried to argue that he was not a “person” for the purposes of Canadian Income Tax Act. The judge rejected Merrill’s arguments as “twisted” and “straw man logic” that “contradicts any rational answer”.
In particular, the man responsible for organizing the anti-mask and anti-lockdown rallies in Kelowna last year, David Lindsay, also spent some time in jail for refusing to file income taxes. In fact, the judge in Merrill’s 2020 tax case cited a 2011 BC appeals court ruling that saw Lindasy’s refusal to file taxes set a precedent for convicting Merrill.
