This might be more of a thing about general etiquette and being a decent person, but: if someone has a phobia of a thing, the responsibility is theirs to move away from it. A phobia isn't a carte blanche to be an asshole to other people.

Stemming from the time a former friend was completely obnoxious and going on and on about how scary/creepy clowns are wah wah wah while a person working as a clown, a not-intentionally-creepy clown, was right there trying to do her goddamn job, as were some kids/other people trying to enjoy the performance. Completely rude, bratty, and uncalled for.

Frankly, I doubt that this particular person was even that afraid of clowns as she made no attempt to move her ass. Being afraid of clowns is one of those things that's strangely on-trend so that lots of unaffected people convince themselves they have it, ala gluten intolerance and an aversion to the word "moist."

I still get mad thinking about this. Adults behaving worse than toddlers = my pet peeve, adults behaving worse than toddlers in public = are you fucking serious.

Luckily, people are getting better about this. At least these days people know to stfu about visible real life disfigurements that they find scary.