Dear Sprouts,

I have to tell you, though it’s been days since our trip down to Sprouts in Modesto I am still very upset. I checked your website and NOWHERE could I find any information that you require shoppers to wear a mask. We drove all the way from Twain Harte to visit your store. Had we known about masks being required even for those with health conditions that prevent wearing face coverings we never would have made the trip.

I just want to point a few things out to you:

If you are going to militantly enforce your own mask requirement, you should at least make sure they are being worn properly. Few of the customers were wearing their masks correctly, and many of your staff were not wearing their masks correctly. This level of incompetence shows that your efforts are, at best, theater and are not actually intended to help ensure the health of your customers or staff.

The CDC clearly states that masks are not a substitute for social distancing and cleanliness. Sending seven (yes seven) goons to surround us, all within 6 feet, several within 1 foot, to harass us for daring to enter your store without masks is an abomination even upon your purely theatrical stage.

I have trouble breathing even without a mask. There is no way I could ever wear one. You are the only store to turn me away this entire time (over 5 months now!), and you should know better. Sprouts is supposed to be up on the latest news and studies regarding masks and such. Masks will not protect you from the virus and they can be harmful to your health.

To add insult to injury, you drenched sanitizer all over my cart before returning it to me with my purchase. That stuff is absorbed through the skin and I had it all over my hands. Not cool. Every day the FDA is adding more sanitizers to their list of products to avoid (currently 87 as of the time of writing) – several available in your store, but that didn’t stop you from pouring it all over the cart and my purchased items. Since you don’t know how sanitizers work you should probably have a trainer visit. A competent trainer would be able to explain why you don’t just drench a cart containing your customers products in disinfectant and then give it to them still wet so you can comply with the state mandates. These disinfecting poisons aren’t supposed to be touched with bare hands. Be careful though, the trainers might be as disappointed as we were and just recommend shutting your business down instead.

Your lead goon even had the audacity to claim that your harassment was acceptable under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) because you were making “other” accommodations available. Under the ADA your accommodations must be equivalent and they must not be a burden: you can not simply discriminate against those with health conditions for your own convenience. You offer “home delivery” – just not to Twain Harte, and accept online orders – but refuse to accept cash for them. This is not “equivalent.” Considering that only a month ago almost nobody wore masks and that the CA Department of Public Health order explicitly exempts various categories of people, what could the ADA-compliance burden possibly be of allowing those very people into your store without masks? None at all. Your refusal to allow those with medical conditions that are otherwise healthy into your store without masks — which are not, in fact, required by law — is a violation of the ADA.

I have no doubt that had you been riding the bus in Montgomery in 1955, you’d have screamed at Rosa Parks to “just sit in the back of the bus.” Congratulations – Sprouts is the new KKK.

We have been making the trek to your store about once a month, and we spend a great deal of money there, usually at least a couple hundred dollars each trip. We will no longer be making the trip to your store or to any other Sprouts for that matter. These gestapo tactics demonstrate that you don’t care about your customers health or well being. In the past I’ve frequently promoted your store and was always excited to visit. No more. And it’s not just me.

We will be shopping at the new Heritage Marketplace, and it’s a lot closer.