MIDDLETON (WKOW) — A handful of protesters, some supporters and eventually police and health officials converged Wednesday outside a Middleton coffee shop allegedly flouting Dane County’s indoor mask order.

A viral social media post on Monday showed a sign in the window of Helbachs coffee shop stating, “This is a mask free zone. Please remove mask before entering.” The sign had been removed by Monday afternoon.

Photos of the sign quickly spread on social media Monday, with many people calling out the company, and a few others supporting the move.

On Wednesday, two protesters were outside of the shop with signs that read, “What would Jesus do? She would put a mask on,” and “Mask Up.”

Frieda Schowalter said she came to protest outside the business because of the experience she had at the coffee shop one day earlier.

“I came Tuesday and they still were not wearing masks,” Schowalter said. “The other things they were not following either, there was not distance between the tables.”

A 27 News reporter saw a number of customers going in and out of the coffee shop without masks, in apparent violation of the order.

Later, a supporter of the coffee shop came out to civilly debate the order with the protesters. Nicole Pulvermacher said she felt as though public health officials and pro-mask messengers were trying to bully her.

“Unless my spirit says it would be in your best interests to do this, or my heart felt like this feels right, this feels in alignment, then I would (wear a mask),” Pulvermacher said. “But it will not be because everyone else is telling me what to do.”

When asked if she considers acts like wearing a seat belt to be government orders followed by the masses, Pulvermacher said seat belt laws are not the same as mask orders.

“I wear my seat belt; that feels normal to me, putting on a seat belt in the car,” she said. “I don’t have resistance to that. I do have resistance to being forced.”

Pulvermacher and Schowalter discussed the order’s merits for several minutes before both started getting agitated and Pulvermacher went back inside the business.

“I realize there’s freedoms but this is a global pandemic and personal freedoms do not trump taking care of one another,” Schowalter said.

Not long after that, a Public Health Madison and Dane County inspector and Madison Assistant City Attorney Marci Paulsen arrived. The two officials went inside the shop and left about five minutes later, saying their attempt to “educate” Helbachs owners about the order were unsuccessful.

“The owner was confrontational, said we were harassing him, actually called the police and said we are harassing him,” Paulsen said. “And said he would not follow any of the orders.”