Fredericton Pilates Studio Won’t Be Pressured Into Changing Vaccination Policy
FREDERICTON – Precision Pilates owner Cara Hazelton says she will not be changing her business’s vaccination policy after facing hateful comments online.
Early last week, Hazelton announced on Facebook and Instagram that Precision Pilates will require all their clients to show proof of vaccination against Covid-19 beginning September 7.
“As some of my staff have children who are too young to receive the vaccine and we all know people who are at a higher risk for serious infection, I feel that this is the best decision,” she wrote in the post. “The health and safety of my team and clients are of utmost importance to me.”
Since making the post announcing the policy, Hazelton says she has received a lot of support from her current clients but has also received an onslaught of hate comments and messages from people she says have never set foot in her business.
“Every single person, without exception, who’s made a negative comment on any social media post or left a bad review, or anything like that, none of them have been clients of mine in the past,” she said in an interview with Huddle.
“Not one of those people has ever stepped inside my door. None of them know me. I don’t know any of them personally. And when you randomly click on a few names, most of them don’t even live here.”
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Hazelton says that while she can accept that some people will not agree with the policy, online bullying and harassment are uncalled for.
“If you don’t want to come to my business, you don’t have to, but why would you also say horrible things,” she said. “I was called a Nazi this morning in a private message. That’s pretty extreme.”
Other comments on Precision Pilates’ pages are less extreme, but just as factually inaccurate.
“Discriminatory and promotes a segregated society,” wrote one user.
“Disgusting they support segregation in 2021, boycott these pathetic people,” another wrote.
Despite the loud voices against Hazelton’s policy, she has no plans of backing down.
“No, certainly not,” she said when asked if she would reconsider her policy in the face of the online vitriol. “I think it’s where everything is headed anyway with the airlines, the travel restrictions, and all this and now with the current cluster that we’re seeing in Moncton.”
Hazelton says that the decision to implement a policy like this did not come lightly, but is confident it is the right thing to do, despite online comments that suggest the contrary.
“I’m not saying you have to get a vaccine,” she said. “I’m saying, if you come to my studio, you need to be vaccinated. See, that’s your choice.”