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The Citi Field waitress who was sent home for being unvaccinated just before Mayor Eric Adams announced exemptions for pro athletes says she can now return to work — thanks in part to The Post’s coverage of her ordeal.
Elissa Embree — who graced The Post’s March 25 cover — said her employer Aramark notified her Wednesday that her application for religious exemption was approved, and that she can return to work as long as she gets weekly COVID-19 tests.
“I don’t think with your reporting, they had much of a choice,” Embree, 43, said Thursday.
The Harlem resident, who worked at Pat LaFrieda’s Chop House at the Mets’ Citi Field, was sent home during preseason orientation for refusing to get the jab — just one week before the mayor granted a controversial vaccine exemption for pro athletes and performers.
Embree, a Jewish married mother of a 2-year-old daughter, at the time blasted the mayor’s move, saying: “I’m not as important as a Met is, because a Met will fill Citi Field, which fills the coffers of New York.”
When Embree got the email from work about her exemption being approved, she was “thrilled,” but at the same time, “I thought to myself this is great for me but this is way bigger than me.”
“Until cops, firemen, teachers, truckers, nurses, sanitation workers — until all these people can return to a dignified day of work — the fight is not over by any means,” she told The Post.
Embree — who doesn’t want to get the vaccine for religious, medical and political reasons — said she doesn’t believe her request for an exemption “would have been reviewed with the scrutiny that it was” had she not gone public.
Still, “This is a Band-Aid fix,” she said. “There is still an overreaching medical mandate.”
“You are choosing who wins at the game of COVID and clearly the rules are not applying to the elite,” she said of Adams’ exemption.
Embree said she still needs to work out if she will have to foot the bill for weekly PCR testing — which can go for as much as $150 a pop — or whether insurance will cover it. Then she can determine if it’s financially viable to return for the season where she made between $200 and $500 a game.
“They approved my religious exemption which is amazing,” Embree said.
Still, “it’s been seven months since my last paycheck, so anything is better than nothing,” she said of needing to get the weekly tests. Embree noted she was also fired from another waitressing job for being unvaccinated.
James Mermigis — a lawyer whom Embree reached out to on March 24 when Adams announced the contentious move — said Aramark’s approval of her religious exemption “is the right thing.”
But he said, “she shouldn’t have had to be put through the wringer to get her job back.”
Mermigis, who’s been dubbed “the anti-shutdown lawyer” because of his pandemic-related lawsuits, said he received roughly 300 calls within two days of the mayor’s exemption from unvaccinated Big Apple workers interested in suing.
An Aramark spokesperson said: “We are glad that this was resolved and that Elissa can continue to work at Citi Field.”
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