AN Albury supermarket boss thinks politics sparked the order to wear masks in regional NSW and he will not stop customers who rebel.
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Norris Park IGA proprietor Gary Evans is grudgingly wearing a mask but he personally objects to them and believes they are unnecessary in country areas.
"Rural NSW has basically zilch (COVID cases)....and we get lumbered again," Mr Evans said.
"It's like the analogy where one kid in the class talks and you keep the whole class in, it's not right, it's so wrong.
"(NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian) was doing a really good job until some silly bureaucrat got in her ear and said 'you've got to lock the whole state down', it just doesn't work.
"We've had people today shaking their heads and saying 'this is just ridiculous'.
"We've got no problems in the country really and I object that we have to wear these things (masks), I'll wear it but I'm not happy doing it, that's for sure."
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Mr Evans has instructed his 25 staff not to challenge unmasked customers, who amount to about 20 per cent since the rule was introduced on Saturday.
"I'm not going to stop them coming into the store to buy whatever they want because they don't have a mask," he said.
Mr Evans conceded he would have a different approach if his supermarket was in a hotspot for COVID.
"If we were in Sydney not a problem, I don't have an issue with that, but again we're doing the right thing, we social distance, and we're not a big store, we're not a Coles or Woolies so we don't have thousands of people come in," he said.
"People have got sense here, we just don't give them credit enough, our customers are sensible, you don't have to put lines every 30 centimetres, people stand back."
Owner of IGA supermarkets at East Albury, Springdale Heights, Jindera and Lockhart Bob Mathews said his staff were wearing masks.
"As far as our customers are concerned, it's a personal choice," Mr Mathews said.
"We're never going to stop our customers, they have their own opinions and they'll continue to have their own opinions.
"There is no known COVID in our area.
"If there was rampant COVID running through Albury we would probably not let customers in (without masks) but that's not the situation we're in."
Meanwhile, Albury Wodonga Health has had long delays for COVID testing at its clinic in Wodonga.
Patients were waiting for up to two hours on Monday.
In response the opening period at the Vermont Street hub has been extended from 8am to 5pm on Tuesday and patients are urged to consider other testing sites.
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