The waist park did not appear to be of a significant size., but I was across the aisle. Putting it in the seat pocket was apparently not acceptable. Interesting that another poster on this thread reports an on-board announcement about this. No announcement on any of my recent flights.

Since there was no announcement, I saw no other people being instructed to remove waist packs, and in my many years of flying I had never seen this”rule” being applied — I wondered if this pax was being targeted for some reason. I only caught a bit of the exchange with the SD but I think safety was mentioned.

This flight was on a smaller aircraft but I don’t know if that had anything to do with it. Likely not given what someone above reports.

In any event something to be aware of.