/usr/web/www.marshallindependent.com/wp-content/themes/coreV2/single.php
×

Lynd restaurant owner served with trespassing notice

McFarquhar escorted from SMSU building after not wearing mask

Photo by Deb Gau SMSU public safety and Marshall Police officers gave a trespassing notice to Larvita McFarquhar on Wednesday, before escorting her out of a university building. University spokespeople said McFarquhar and one other person went to the university without face masks, and that McFarquhar disrupted classes that were in progress Wednesday morning.

MARSHALL — A Lynd restaurant owner whose defiance of COVID-19 restrictions created controversy was escorted out of a building at Southwest Minnesota State University by Marshall Police on Wednesday.

Larvita McFarquhar and one other person, Steve Lahr, were given trespassing notices after going into SMSU without masks. McFarquhar also disrupted classes on Wednesday morning, a university spokesperson said.

McFarquhar said she accompanied her daughter, who is a student at SMSU, to classes on Wednesday because her daughter was afraid of how she was being treated for not wearing a face covering.

“She didn’t want to go by herself,” McFarquhar told the Independent. She said her daughter had a medical exemption to wearing a face mask.

In a video posted on Facebook on Wednesday, McFarquhar said the university was “trying to deny my daughter access to college, her class, because she will not, cannot, won’t wear a face covering of any kind.” In the video, McFarquhar says she is “going in to see what her professor has to say.” She was not wearing a face covering in the video.

Bill Mulso, vice president for government relations, communications and marketing at SMSU, confirmed there was an incident Wednesday morning when McFarquhar entered a classroom on campus. Mulso said McFarquhar disrupted a class in progress, and after a second classroom disruption later that morning, she was issued a trespassing notice.

Mulso said SMSU is operating under Gov. Tim Walz’s executive order that all people wear face coverings when in indoor businesses and indoor public settings. Even before that executive order took effect, the Minnesota State colleges and universities system had also issued a face covering rule, he said.

Under the mask order, accommodations can be made for people who have medical or mental health conditions or disabilities that make it unreasonable for them to wear a mask. Those reasonable accommodations include wearing a face shield instead of a mask, or moving to virtual learning instead of in-person learning, Mulso said.

Later, after walking to a second classroom, McFarquhar and Lahr were met in the hall by Mike Munford, director of public safety at SMSU. Munford said they both would be restricted from campus. Marshall Police were called to the scene, and issued both McFarquhar and Lahr trespassing notices. Officers walked McFarquhar, her daughter, and Lahr out of the building, although officers did not follow them once they were outside.

McFarquhar said the trespassing notices prohibit her and Lahr from coming back to SMSU for a year.

McFarquhar said Wednesday she does plan to take legal action in response to the incident.

“I’m going to fight all of it,” she said. However, she said she did not know what her first step was. She also said her daughter would still go back to class without a mask. “She has every right to be in school.”

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.38/week.

Subscribe Today