During the busy long weekend, Main Street Diner owner, Nick Diamond had enough of customers not following COVID-19 protocols at his restaurant.
Diamond posted about the incident on his Facebook page, stating “pushy” and “rude” customers were the main cause behind the decision to close the Diner.
“We had an incredible influx of out-of-town visitors moving through my business. Many were pushy, rude, and not following basic health orders or advisories. My staff were being pushed around and treated poorly.”
Without even checking the recent COVID-19 case numbers for the province, Diamond said he made the decision in the name of community health and safety.
“I made this decision without even knowing about our new case totals for BC and I hadn’t yet read the CBC ‘Breaking’ headline regarding back-to-back days of record covid cases in our province. I made this decision solely based on my experience throughout the day and the frustrations my staff were battling with.”
He went on to voice his frustration about how hard the pandemic has been on front-line workers and that he understands it’s tough but now is not the time to give up.
“Our nurses, our doctors, and our medical teams have made too many sacrifices, literally risking life and limb for months now, for us to give up so close to the vaccine finish line.”
At the end of the day, he said it is all about the health and safety of the community.
“I don’t want your money right now, I want you to go home, be safe, and stay healthy.”
This act caught the attention of Nelson-Creston MLA Brittny Anderson.
“I just want to say how courageous I think Nick was for doing what he did to keep his staff and the community safe, but also for sharing it publicly. I think that’s hard sometimes to want to be public with what you have experienced, as a business owner you are worried about backlash, but I think by him sharing what happened in the community and I think that we have seen an overwhelmingly tremendous amount of support for the very tough decision he did make.”
Anderson said situations like these could be avoided if everyone stayed home and avoided any non-essential travel.
“I’m hoping that this doesn’t happen again I’m hoping that people realize that now is not the time to travel so they aren’t putting the owner in that difficult decision to make that type of choice. Throughout this region over the long weekend, there was certainly a lot of tourism happening, it wasn’t just people traveling for essential purposes but there were tourists visiting our area and it’s just not appropriate or safe to do so at this time.”
