Kelsey Katich

Review of Changing Hands Bookstore

Less than pleased with the atmosphere in this book...

Less than pleased with the atmosphere in this bookstore. On both occasions the staff have been cold and unfriendly. My boyfriend and I are so used to
Being able to remove our masks while being seated, when we were approached for sitting alone by the bathrooms without our masks we were both surprised.A man with long hair in a ponytail informed us that we were unable to remove our masks at any time in the bookstore so we willingly obliged and put our masks back on. However less than a few minutes past he is seen watching us from across the store on several occasions trying to see if we were wearing our masks properly. While I understand the importance of wanting to keep the business up and running his efforts were honestly borderline harassment. He once again came over and Told my boyfriend he was not wearing his mask properly as it had slipped below his nose during our conversation. As we spoke to him another associate was called over and he began to inform us that We could wait outside while they shopped for us. (We were merely interested in sitting and having a conversation over a book in a small corner of the bookstore away from everyone else.) After we decided it was time to leave, we witnessed two women in the store clearly wearing masks below their noses to which the employees saw and said nothing. We watched as the women walked freely in the store as we were strongly encouraged to shop elsewhere. While I understand the mask mandate, the level to which the store interacts with customers is robotic and frankly obsessive. If you were truly concerned about the health and well-being of your customers why are you open?