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  • Make sure you spell my name right (long)

    Those who read my Drugstore Complaints thread may remember me mentioning a particular SOB whom I've caught panhandling near the entrance of my store. Said SOB has been snarky with me on those occasions because he thinks it's okay to be proud of his ability to take advantage of the kindness of others. (Don't give me any lectures about being heartless towards the plight of the homeless. These guys make more money than I do, without getting taxed no less. And we have shelters, and food shelves, and a fully staffed free clinic, and services out the wazoo available to them.)

    I'm trying to help a customer get ahold of one of our other nearby locations so she can get her perscription, because true to form the pharmacist on duty decided to go home early again. Fortunately, if you don't have the perscription physically waiting for you at one store, you can get it at another one of our locations.

    This is all happening while a man from corporate is overseeing things here. (I've yet to figure out just what it is he's doing there, but it makes us all behave our best like a bunch of little kids who don't want to piss off Santa Clause, if you know what I mean) Incidently, most of the corporate level people I met have been extremely cool, and understanding. They understand that I know these people and I know who to watch out for.

    Another customer walks up and tells us this guy is not only panhandling, but he's also over in the beverage aisle.

    As soon as I retrieve my cell phone from the customer who needed her perscription, I'm in aisle eight and I see the SOB removing his hand from his backpack. Naturally I think he's stolen something, so I ask him to let me see in side his bag. And of course he's running his mouth a mile a minute while he pulls things out (one of them a nice cold can of beer no less. Fortunately for him I didn't find one missing from any of our cases), "What did someone report me, I'm not stealing stuff, blah, blah, blah."

    Now, the corporate guy in question hasn't been to this store before. But he basically tells the SOB that he can't panhandle out there. SOB leaves, and the corporate guy asks me if I actually saw him steal anything. And of course aside from the suspicious can of beer no, I didn't. He tells me that we're not really supposed to be searching them unless we see them take it.

    It makes sense and I apologize for overstepping my bounds. About a minute later, Dipstick walks back in and goes to the cashier two registers down from me.

    Dipstick SOB: Yeah, three employees asked me to leave the store. I don't like the way I was treated by them so I want their ID numbers and the number to corporate.

    Me: (Grinning in my, I Would Kill You if Not For the Cameras and Witnesses grin that I reserve for assholes like him) Our corporate number is 1-800-FU2AH and my name is Nathanielle Sean C-----.

    I told him how to spell it, how to spell my manager's name, the store number and everything.

    One of the supervisors and even the corporate visitor saw all this and both agree that I didn't do anything wrong at this point. I just need to remember how to handle suspected shoplifters from here on out. No problem.

    A couple hours later when the store is much quieter, he comes back. I just know he's trying to get me to say something to him, but he keeps his mouth shut. He asks if we have any dollar beers, and of course we don't sell beer singly here. Unfortunately the customer I had before him apparently dropped a five dollar bill and after making a huge show of returning it to his owner (with an acting skill that makes my four year-old sister look like Judi Dench) he goes to the winecase and returns with a bottle of Merlot.

    BURN! Dipshit doesn't have ID. I quote him state law and store policy with and with all the power avoid saying to him, "I guess working for a living means I can afford the fifteen dollars for a real state ID."

    Boy what a day.

  • #2
    Your story about this "panhandler" brings up an issue I've often wondered about. Thankfully I've been lucky enough to almost never need to deal with this sort of thing at work, so it's more of an "academic" interest.

    As stores, cafes and restaurants are all private businesses, surely this means that the management and owners legally have the right to refuse service to anyone, including asking them to leave the premises. On the other hand, anti-discrimination legislation means you obviously can't ask people to leave because of their race, gender, age (except bars etc.) and so on.

    How exactly does one play this thin line? For instance, could the person described in the original post have legitimately said that he was being discriminated against because he was a "panhandler"? I do understand that laws differ from state to state and in various countries, but I'm talking in a general sense here.

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    • #3
      Well, if he's not a legimate customer, I would assume that alone would be reason to kick him out. Plus a local law against panhandling, plus a company policy against panhandling ("soliciting", maybe?) should be plenty of room.
      "If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking." - George Patton

      "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

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      • #4
        Quoth matty View Post
        How exactly does one play this thin line? For instance, could the person described in the original post have legitimately said that he was being discriminated against because he was a "panhandler"? I do understand that laws differ from state to state and in various countries, but I'm talking in a general sense here.
        Because panhandler is not a race, gender, sexual orientation, or age. Those are pretty much the only "protected" categories. Everything else is protected in the US by right to freedom of assosiation laid out in the constitution. Technically, even those can really only be upheld in cases involving government agencies, as the constitution was laid out to limit government, but it can apply to private businesses in extreme cases that infringe on a person's rights.

        <.<
        >.>

        you can wake up now.
        The Rich keep getting richer because they keep doing what it was that made them rich. Ditto the Poor.
        "Hy kan tell dey is schmot qvestions, dey is makink my head hurt."
        Hoc spatio locantur.

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        • #5
          I would suspect it also falls under 'No loitering.' We had a panhandler outside our local McDonald's, and he was there every day. Trouble with this guy, is that he looked meaner than a junkyard dog, and from the sound of it listening to the employees, it wasn't just looks, he really was an aggressive panhandler. One time he came in to get a coffee with change he'd managed to gather off customers, and was a few cents short. The cashier wouldn't sell it to him, and he went off on a violent cussing rampage. I always made it a point to go in the opposite door, but people like that always give me the creeps, and I mentioned how uncomfortable he made me to the employees. The next day he was gone, and I never saw him since. I suspect that having someone complain about them was all the leverage they needed.
          A fact of life: After Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says W T F.....

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          • #6
            There're also laws against loitering, which, while up to the employee's discretion, would certainly apply to a "customer" who is buying nothing, yet harrassing other customers. I once kicked out a kid who was bothering people for a dollar so he could buy a CD. This was after I had warned him once already. He swaggered out claiming we had treated him like he'd "commited a crime or somethin'!" To which we replied "Well, panhandling is illegal, so yes. Yes we are. Now STFU and GTFO, N00b."

            He did try to argue, but left for good once we offered to have the police mediate his imagined dispute.

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            • #7
              Well, to be fair we didn't tell him he had to leave the store. But we did tell him that he can't beg for change in front of the store. There's a pamphlet down at the bus station that says that panhandlers cannot ask for change within five feet of the entrance of any store, nor can they ask for it right before a customer enters or after he/she leaves the store.

              We can't do anything if they're sitting out on the side of the store, unless a customer complains or unless they get aggressive.

              The trouble is, they wouldn't have so much incentive to sit out there if people would just stop giving them change. I know it's getting colder here, but I've always said that if you have to be homeless anywhere, Vermont is the best place for it to happen, because it does take care of people here. (I was homeless for about two months when I moved to Burlington, so I do know what I'm talking about.)

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              • #8
                Quoth NateTheChops View Post
                I know it's getting colder here, but I've always said that if you have to be homeless anywhere, Vermont is the best place for it to happen, because it does take care of people here.
                The bums here in the Keys, where it is currently 81F at the end of November, would like to respectfully disagree.

                Oh, and they want to know if you can spare some change for "alcohol research."

                "The Customer Is Always Right...But The Bartender Decides Who Is
                Still A Customer."

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                • #9
                  Old joke I heard in poor taste once, but kinda funny:
                  "Canada has a program to take care of the homeless. It's called winter."

                  Can't remember who said it though.
                  Ba'al: I'm a god. Gods are all-knowing.

                  http://unrelatedcaptions.com/45147

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                  • #10
                    Maybe that's why they're all ending up here on Maui ... and at MY library
                    I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand. -- Linus Van Pelt

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