The staff politely asked the man to leave the store.
The staff politely asked the man to leave the store.
Staff at an Auckland Subway sandwich store have been praised for their calm response to an in-store rant from a man who objected to the outlet following vaccine mandate rules.
A video, self-filmed inside the Waiuku branch of Subway and re-posted to Twitter by activist Byron C Clark, shows the man repeatedly claiming that Subway is "fascist" for enforcing the law.
It begins with the man expressing his ideological views to the team patiently waiting to take sandwich orders.
"I don't believe in a Nazi fascist state, okay?" he tells the young staff, asking: "Do you guys want that for New Zealand?"
"Are you okay with everyone having a vaccine pass?"
The staff politely ask the man to stay outside the store, which he promises to do, before asking his question again.
The patient staff again ask the man to "please leave" the store.
The man told staff they were "Nazis".
Finally taking the hint, the man turns to leave and begins addressing his viewers directly, claiming that his inability to purchase a sandwich was due to Subway's status as a "fascist organisation".
He then exhorts his followers to boycott the brand, telling staff they are "Nazis" and all while wearing a mask describing Covid-19 as "state terrorism".
The staff remain professional, calm and polite throughout the bizarre encounter.
The response of the staff was widely praised online, with many congratulating Subway for the young workers' patient replies and commenting that they would be paying the store a visit to support their business.
One suggested that the man could just go to the supermarket and "make his own sandwich".
Others pointed out that Subway is still taking takeaway orders from those without a vaccine passport which they can then pick up from the door, noting that the decision to film the video betrays a "strange combination of entitlement, victimhood and narcissism".
Subway declined to comment on the video, with a spokesperson saying only that they were "adhering to the relevant government guidelines as stipulated in the traffic light system".
There has been a spate of abusive incidents in the days since New Zealand entered the traffic light system and began enforcing vaccine mandates.
A bakery in Canterbury posted online about the "disrespectful" response of some customers, saying they were "disappointed and disgusted" by how their staff were treated.
