A viral video shows a Colorado woman calling staff “Nazis” after she was asked to leave a liquor store for refusing to comply with its mask policy during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ruby Musso filmed the viral video, which shows her arguing with staff after she refused to wear a face mask, asserting that they are breaking the law by asking her to wear a covering.
“I was harassed and assaulted, then thrown out of Molly’s Spirits in Lakeside, Colorado for not wearing a mask,” she wrote in her caption of the video online. “A customer ran her cart into me, workers and managers shoved me and put their hands in my face. Lakeside cops did nothing. I asked cops to get her, so I could press charges and they refused.”
In the video, multiple employees ask Musso to leave as she asserts they don’t know the law. Other customers wearing masks are seen arguing with her and in the background someone can be heard calling her “Karen.”
“You are not going to treat me like this and get away with it,” she says toward the end of the video. “I did nothing! I did nothing! I did nothing but not wear a mask, and look at all these Nazis in Nazi America. Nazi America! Oh my God, I love it!”
Musso defended her decision to refuse a mask in an interview with local Fox News affiliate KDVR.
“I just really tried to stand my ground with that because I feel like it’s really important. There are so many reasons why someone is not wearing a mask,” Musso said, explaining she suffers from panic and anxiety when wearing a mask.
The store owner said the store has received threatening calls after the video went viral.
“It’s not my place to determine what is and is not a health risk. I have to obey the rules and the laws. For me, it’s an issue of an out of control customer creating a scene in my store,” Rufus Nagel, the owner of Molly’s Spirits in Lakeside, Colo., said. “People calling us telling us we’re Nazis and destroying the American dream or something like that. Honestly, we’re just trying to do the best we can.”
Her claims to being legally allowed to refuse a mask are in contradiction with Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D), who at the time of the video’s release emphasized that businesses were in their rights to refuse service to those without face coverings, and later on the same day issued a statewide order directing everyone in the state age 10 and above to wear masks in public settings.