Off-Duty Officer’s Friends Trash Chinese Restaurant When Asked To Wear a Mask

August 31, 2020

A group of customers turned violent toward owners of a Chinese restaurant in Plymouth County, Massachusetts after being told to wear face masks.

Violence over face masks: Surveillance cameras inside The Ming Dynasty Restaurant in Marshfield showed an unruly group causing a disturbance in the establishment, with a 49-year-old woman knocking down the store’s protective plexiglass, WHDH reports.

According to owner Lei Yan, the customers entered the restaurant without wearing any masks.
As part of their safety measures, they asked the group to wear face masks.
Instead of complying with the request, the group took offense from not being served drinks and turned violent.
Lei Yan felt her husband’s life was put in danger during the commotion.
“She was pushing my husband and smashed my front desk,” Lei Yan shared.
It was later found that one of the members of the rowdy group was an off-duty police officer, reported WCVB.
Restaurant co-owner Jimmy Tian said the officer said something along the lines of: “I’m a police officer, I don’t need a mask.”
Tian narrated that the officer even showed his police ID to the people inside the entire restaurant.
Quincy Police has reportedly launched an internal investigation regarding the officer’s conduct.
No one has been arrested following the incident.

Damned if you do: Enforcing face mask regulations had not been easy for many small businesses like The Ming Dynasty, which was suspended a day for non-enforcement a month ago by the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission.

After being cited for having customers without masks last month, Yan said: “I’m so sorry for what I did wrong. I know my difficulty is my difficulty, we don’t want to bring our difficulties to the government, even though we make less money than those on unemployment.”
The restaurant has since been placed under regular spot checks by the Board of Health, according to WHDH.

Feature Image via WCVB Channel 5 Boston

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