Sooooooo anyway, disgust developed as a disease avoidance behaviour. Situations that trigger disgust are most often situations where there is a perception of disease. Rotting things, roaches, rats, etc. You sees these, the natural reaction for most is to feel disgust and lose their appetite, which in turn causes them to move away from that place. For example, a server shows up with a huge cold sore on their face, that impacts the customer's lasting perception of the cleanliness of the establishment regardless of whether or not it poses real risk to anyone. Thus if a food service business has determined that employees wearing masks is associated with triggering subconscious disease detection, i.o.w. disgust, then it makes sense for them to ban masks because they don't want customers to think there are sick workers there, regardless of whether or not there are. It may be completely illusory, but giving customers the idea they are safe there is actually pretty important for most businesses.

Let’s get off topic: At what point should an employer have to keep paying someone who isn’t at work? Or maybe another way to look at it, who should be responsible for paying someone when they’re not at work? Obvs a complicated issue. Your post gives the sense that a restaurant owner, for example, should be more responsible for paying employees who aren’t there. (Maybe I read that totally wrong)

Why not?

meh, that place is overrated anyway.

If it’s someone I know, I want to have face to face interaction. I don’t want the idea of healthy people wearing masks to be at all normalized around my kids. I also get sick of asking masked people to repeat every third sentence because I can’t understand their muffled voice. If it’s a stranger going door to door for whatever reason, it’s about security.

Most everyone who enters a place of business is a stranger to the proprietor so asking costumers to not wear masks is common sense.

If it’s someone I know, I want to have face to face interaction. I don’t want the idea of healthy people wearing masks to be at all normalized around my kids. I also get sick of asking masked people to repeat every third sentence because I can’t understand their muffled voice. If it’s a stranger going door to door for whatever reason, it’s about security.

Most everyone who enters a place of business is a stranger to the proprietor so asking costumers to not wear masks is common sense.

they're telling their employees they can't wear masks, not their customers.

B_i, I think your posts the last few pages pose little sway in this slightly post-Covid environment. Perceptions have changed so much.

How do you guys feel about food service employees wearing hair or beard nets? Gloves?

Is that off-putting? Does it give off a perception of disease or illness to customers?

If you mean that "masking" is perceived through the right/left political binary vs the sick/healthy binary, sure that is some folks. But IMO it's the same visceral reaction to the threat of communicable disease that powers it and businesses, agree with it or not, are gonna make the decision that brings in and keeps customers. For food service, it's gonna anything that maintains the illusion that there is not a real disease threat there with or without COVID. How many Hepatitis positive workers are in commercial kitchens all over the country right now? Remember typhoid and lettuce from McDonalds? Norovirus on cruise ships. Salmonella. Parasites. The risk is always there, always been there, COVID was was just when it was politicized and mass marketed.