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??

Good luck tomorrow, I hope you son & his friend get a proper apology

Surely they can choose whoever they want to shop at their store ?

No

Provision of goods and services has to adhere to equality legislation

Hence pubs no longer have signs outside saying "no work clothes no blacks no irish".

Some still have no work clothes as this does not discriminate against a protected group.

None have signs outside saying no blacks no irish.

This is good, no?

As some people have rightly pointed out also, in as little as 3 years time, these delinquent 15 year olds will be adults needing to do food shopping. I doubt they will bother with Morrisons having been treated like criminals by them in the past.

Congrats on alienating your future customers there Morrisons!

Mind you according to the equality legislation under18s don't count]]

"The ban does not apply in respect of children aged under 18. This means that people and organisations can continue to provide different services at different rates or on different terms and conditions for children of different ages, or can refuse to serve children ? for example, 'no children' hotels can continue as now and newsagents can still restrict the number of children
entering their shops."

So maybe don't press that one too much.

Still given the examples I still think they are on very shaky ground banning all under16s.

I do think that the legislation was not meant to be used to ban all unaccompanied under 16s from their only local shop. Given the examples.

Totally disgusting to brand an entire generation as potential thieves.

I work in a public place and we have problems with a particular group of teenagers. A few have been banned for antisocial behaviour and local police are involved. Do we ban all teenagers? Of course we bloody don't

Are they going to start asking for ID then to go in?

I'd be piddled off if as an adult I was asked to prove I was old enough to go into a supermarket!

My dds were told they couldn't come in to a shop once (they'd gone in clutching their pocket money to buy me some ear-rings for mothers day - would have been about 12 and 9 at the time). Guess what shop ????

Age UK

NiceTabard thanks for pointing out the equality legislation, I wasn't aware of that.

From what I've read though, there's nothing to stop shops identifying anyone they like as a security risk and refusing them entry on that basis.

How would you ever "prove" discrimination in an individual case ?

Perhaps the prices wont have to be raised to account for the thieving that went on. Banning all children shows it must have been a big problem

It's interesting, the last thread I saw like this (I think Tesco were the culprits in that case) had majority support for the shop, not the teenagers.

I sometimes think the first few responses on a thread set the tone for everybody else who replies.

I do actually think it's unfair though, YANBU

Perhaps the prices wont have to be raised to account for the thieving that went on. Banning all children shows it must have been a big problem

Not necessarily flan I had a problem with my local Aldis - I use a 4 wheel shopping trolley & used to pile my shopping on top of it to shop, as there were no,baskets to use - they took to demanding to look inside it - this was whilst I was standing in a queue full of people - embarrassing & annoying & illegal as I hadn't attempted to leave the store -

after the 3rd time of them singling out me & no one else, I kicked up a big fuss - manageress who seemed half baked out it down to thieving too, no apology, seemed to think it was perfectly okay - I did go to head office & eventually got an apology - they also got baskets as a result too

But in short, its well known in the area that the thrive are not disabled or elderly people using 4 wheeled trolleys, but street drinkers nicking booze - yet I saw security staff ignoring them in favour of checking my bag - trust me I don't look like a street a drinker

cumfy if an organisation states that they are refusing all people who fit a certain criteria then that fits.

As a rule I think it is very hard for individuals to do anything unless they are very rich and/or very very determined. The laws are there but how many ordinary people actually use them. Still I think the fact they are there probably makes a lot of organisations think twice, which can only be good.

I think OPs best bet is to raise the spectre papers reporting only shop in village refusing to sell food to anyone under 16 irrespective of their status, maybe as carers, parents, vulnerable minors etc.

manic yes that is very true, esp in AIBU.

However this thread has the correct tone IMO!

rockinhippy you were probably checked to make up their numbers so the staff could avoid the street drinkers. That is wrong. When it comes down to my spending more to account for others stealing I agree with those thieving being stopped from entering the shop. Children in groups are hard to monitor in a shop

Children in groups are hard to monitor in a shop

I totally agree with that & can understand a ban on large groups of kids, but not a blanket ban on all kids, that just wrong

I was going to come on and say name and shame Op but i see that's been done.
As a huge fan of teenagers (I have one myself) I would be raging.
Definitely discriminatory, hopefully illegal.

Then it gets to how many children should there be coming into the shop & then if they go into groups and this takes time away from the staff doing their jobs in the shop. A total ban is easier and saves the shop time and also the customers time and money. The parents of the children who were stealing are responsible for their kids thieving ways. These people are the ones to blame and not the shop that's just trying to keep going in tough times. The shop employs local people and their jobs and families depend on the supermarket making profit

Morrison's employ security staff to deal with that anyway, so not exactly something they aren't already spending money on dealing with, so what's the difference, kids, street drinkers or whatever, the larger groups are the issue & again no big deal to set a sensible policy for

Eh?

Massive national supermarket
Only shop in town

Banning

All under 16s irrespective of status

= Out of order + discriminatory

Simples

So young person goes into shop to buy weekly shop for family.

Morrisons = you are 15 so piss off.

Young carer and family way fucked.

Understandable? No. Out of order? Yes.

Not all under 16 are criminals. I can't believe I just had to write that

Soon my only local shop will be Morrisons and its normal for me to send one of the dc down if i discover in the middle of cooking say that i need something. I'm ok because they are old enough but the policy is stupid. Lets face it what are teenage shoplifters going to take? Little bits and pieces, chocolate or sweets the big costs are stolen meat etc so it would be more sensible to focus on that. Teenagers are easy targets though.

It's a strong statement for the supermarket to make and risks losing out on trade but it's hard times and shops are closing and it sounds like the shop here is doing this to stay afloat. If the stealing stops when the kids are banned, and this will show in the accounts, then the shop can show it is protecting it's stock and livelihood. The local people who work there should be supported. If there are young carers getting the weekly shop or picking up a loaf of bread then they should talk with the management.