FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - A woman said she is outraged after she went to a gas station in Fort Lauderdale and spotted swastikas on one of the masks the business had for sale.
Speaking with 7News on Thursday, Kelly Wagner said she had quite the morning at the Shell station along Powerline Road, near Cypress Creek Road.
“I went straight to the register, and there were three masks: one was the Miami Heat, another was a brand name that I was not familiar with, but right in the middle was a mask that had swastikas with eagles underneath them,” she said.
The black mask with white swastikas printed on it was taped to the plexiglass on the front counter.
Wagner said she immediately pulled out her cellphone.
“I took some pictures, and I asked the woman behind the counter if she was aware that Shell was selling swastika face masks,” she said, “and she looked and was rather flippant and said, ‘Yes.’ I was mortified at having seen it. I was even more mortified at the flippancy with which her response to me was.”
When 7News asked a sales clerk at the station about the mask, she said they no longer had that mask available.
“The last one was sold,” said the employee. “We buy from vendors, so it sells.”
When asked whether she was offended by the mask, the sales clerk replied, “Ma’am, I work here, so no matter what, we have to sell what the store has.”
“There’s absolutely no need for it. It’s nothing but destructive, and it’s hurtful. It’s hateful, and there’s no place for it,” said Wagner.
Speaking to 7News over the phone, Sazzad Hossais, the manager of the gas station, said they buy boxes of masks from a private vendor.
“They sell us, like, Nike, Adidas, this type of stuff inside the box, so it’s not our fault, and personally, I don’t want to sell those kinds of stuff,” Hossais said, “so, in the morning, I found it, I talked to the [vendor], I said, ‘No more,’ and returned everything.”
Hosseis said they will not sell those masks again.
“It’s good, that’s excellent, but that makes me question why those went up in the first place,” said Wagner.
7News reached out to the station’s parent company, First Coast Energy, to see whether they will be releasing a statement, but as of Thursday night, we have not received a response.
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