The In-N-Out Burger restaurant won’t kick out customers who fail to display a “vaccine passport” proving they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19.
In-N-Out has restaurants in California and the Southwest. And it has one in San Francisco, where Mayor London Breed has ordered restaurants to enforce the city’s vaccine mandate.
Arnie Wensinger, an attorney for the chain, has explained the company’s defiance.
“We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government,” he said on KPIX-TV. “It is unreasonable, invasive, and unsafe to force our restaurant associates to segregate customers into those who may be served and those who may not, whether based on the documentation they carry, or any other reason. [This is] intrusive, improper, and offensive.”
In an age of weasel words and abject apologies for non-wrongdoing, In-N-Out Burger is forthright in defense of itself and its customers.
Not without cost. The health department closed the restaurant for mandate violations, and it was able to partially reopen only for takeout and drive-through orders.
Indoor dining is verboten.
The San Francisco health department says that the restaurant was informed “multiple times about the proof of vaccination requirement,” as if the mere repetition of such an order were enough to justify it. The “outreach team provided information so the restaurant could comply. . . .”
Of course, the folks at In-N-Out Burger know that they “could comply.” And the San Francisco government has also been provided with information on why they should leave In-N-Out alone. Would repetition help?
Leave In-N-Out alone.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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