to complain about a supermarket banning all school children??

[JW12345]

My 14 year old son and his friend went to buy a few items from our local Morrisons supermarket, which is something they have done many times before, however this time they were turned away at the entrance and told that any child under 16 was not allowed in without an adult.

When I rang to ask why I was told that school children steal from the shop and are abusive to staff. When questioning the store duty manager further it turned out that they knew the children concerned but had decided to ban all children as it was easier to maintain the ban.

My son and his friend are good kids and would not do this.

There are no signs up about this new policy, just the embarrassment for the children being turned away.

To me this is a very sweeping generalisation of what a generation of people are like.

We live in a small town so the local supermarket is also the same as your local shop.

This now means that children can no longer run errands for parents/grandparents, this will also affect those parents who have a disability/illness and rely on older children to help out.

I pointed out that in the local paper it was usually middle aged women or drunken 30ish men that were reported on for causing problems in the store, were they going to ban them too??

I have no problem with the store suggesting that children can't use the store just before school or for say the first hour after school, when you would probably get large numbers descending on the store but a complete blanket ban seems ridiculous and unfair to me, especially when there are no notices up.

What do you think??

There was a case some years ago regarding a corner shop that had the 'only 2 school children at one time' sign - it was ruled as discriminatory.

However our Asda bans school children before school and I've seen Poundland with what can only be described as a line of staff preventing school children going in, other than in twos.

So I'm afraid, unless X & Y were prosecuted, then a blanket ban is the only way to enforce it.

I do know of policies in some sainsburys that they have to stop and 'question'/refuse to serve children in uniform if they come in during the day (when they should be in school), and even ring the school in some instances! Which I think is bloody ridiculous.

I think it's very unfair of the store to do this, and surely if they know which children are the offenders, they should just stop those ones going in!

Age discrimination is now illegal of course.

I don't know who you would contact about it though to kick up a fuss.

It's sterotyping - I mean, you could hardly ban all blacks/gays going in because you wanted to cast a sweeping generalisation.

It seems very unfair on kids who just want to go shopping and branding them all as criminals.

If an old lady stole from the shop they wouldn't ban all pensioners, would they???

Sorry just read your last posts, I was typing when you posted them. I do agree with you

I think you make a valid point about children who are carers.

at 14 i did all my housebond nan shopping.

A boy who lived in our road till recently did the weekly shop for his mum, as she was disabled.

I think it is outrageous. They are saying a whole section of society are thieves. They would never get away with saying that about any other group within society, so why is it okay to treat teenagers as second class citizens. I doubt that this is legal.

I can understand small shops not being able to cope with hoards of hungry unruly kids buying sweets after school. But for a big chain to implement a ban like that is not on.. At 14 I was doing most of the cooking in the house (not a carer - just normal family life). Doing this stuff is part of growing up and taking responsibility. Am shocked, esp as you are in a small town so no choice.

YANBU. I can't think of any other sector of the population where the actions of a thoughtless few would get everyone else banned as well!

Woah that is ridiculous. Really bad.

When my son was a teen, old enough to drive, he was at the mall and sat down on a bench and was told he could not sit there.

You could try contacting morrison's head office - are they aware, is this a policy they are happy with, are they aware they may stop child carers doing what they need which will look bad if it reaches the papers, sounds out of line with discrimination legislation etc.

may be a manager gone off message and they will tell him to stop it.

I'd contact Morrisons HO tbh - they should be able to speak to the store in question and tell them not to be so ridiculous.

I've not contacted Head Office yet, our local store is due to ring me back tomorrow. Apparently the manager who thought up the policy will be in touch. I put this post up as I wanted to make sure I wasn't over reacting because it had happened to my son, who was embarrassed when he was turned away.

They would never dream of doing this to parents or other sectors of society, they wouldn't even ban the parents of children who had stolen. School children are a nice easy target!

I think there are a lot of good points on here that you can raise and I suspect the manager won't have thought about.

The spectre of bad publicity / going against anti-discrimination legislation should hopefully give them something to think about.

This happened to me when I was 15. I wrote to the management of the shopping centre that had refused me entry and copied it into my local MP.

I got an apology from the management and a supportive letter from my MP.

Next time I tried to go shopping I was refused entry again and they only let me in when I told them about the letter.

The security staff knew all about my letter as it had apparently been read out in a staff meeting and yet they were still sticking to a blanket ban on teenagers.

So sad that young people are still being treated this way nearly 30 years later.

Extremely bad. You wouldn't be able to ban all black people, or Asians for example because you caught a couple of them stealing. There would be outcry, and rightly so.

Contact Morrisons head office, it is not acceptable. Where we live there is a tesco express, but the only proper shop is Morrisons. When DD was under 16 this would have been an absolute nightmare, she often picked up stuff for dinner for me that we'd need fresh on the way back from school.

Can you imagine of a pensioner was caught stealing and then they banned all pensioners as it was easier?

Why not complain to the chairman about this?

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Perhaps ask him why use Ant and Dec for advertising to young people and then rebuff these very same young people at the door?

We're the same we have a Tesco Metro (which never has anything) so the only proper shop is Morrisons. The next town has an Asda which we will now be using extra diesel to go and use instead!! More reasons to shop at Morrisons? More reasons to shop at Asda!!

all the local shops in my school town were 2 school children only when I was there.

I don't really see it as the same as ban all pensioners etc. The school uniforms make school children to identify from each other. I'm sure your son is well behaved but for the store, school children probably spend relatively little and they lose money from theft so it's easier for them. Write to them if you're that bothered but like I said, it's been going on since I was at school (at least 10 years ago)

I know of another branch of Morrisons (in St Andrews) that has special tills for teenagers who are NOT allowed to use other tills, however empty. I feel very strongly that this should be stopped.

If we mention the name Morrisons enough on this thread as using discrimination, it will eventually go up the ranks in google. Then they will listen.

I'd forgotten about Ant and Dec, that's a good point!

But surely they will a whole generation of shoppers.

If my 14 yo was turned away, he would never shop in any Morissons again, even when he was 92. But maybe that's jsut my DS.

My son wasn't in school uniform but was smartly dressed. This is a blanket ban on any children 16 and under not with a parent!