No, that's not it at all. This was after multiple conversations with the same person explaining the situation. There was signs on the door, on the boxes, with giant type, highlighters, bright colors, the works.

This was people explicitly ignoring any and all signals contrary to their desires.

The confusing bit is that a strip of tape with no other context is what stopped them. Probably just that it was something so outside of the ordinary experience that it forced them to actually engage their brain for a moment.