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In the front of a Chinese restaurant they have a small shrine - a succah less than a foot tall. Placed before it is a bowl of rice with vertical chopsticks and a plate of oranges. There is no idol inside it, rather there is an inscribed tablet. This is a method of sending provisions to an ancestor rather than paying homage to a god.
Do the items have the same prohibitions of a equivalent items snatched from an altar to Baal Peor?
R. Ethan Tucker discusses a very similar issue -- whether one can "salute the ancestors" at a karate class -- in the below podcast. He concludes that much depends on the intent of the person who put up the photo/shrine, and whether the salute is understood as a form of real worship or a customary mark of respect.
