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 on the manageress.

flanbase, she will be calling the Police to deal with trouble-makers. As is appropriate.

What's Ant and Dec got to do with it.
They are nearly 40 years old and don't appeal to teenagers. Just old mums who think they were cute in Byker Grove a couple of decades ago.

They also appear in all Morrison's TV ads.

Flanbase - my son is a well behaved child, who would help anybody out and would never verbally abuse the staff at the supermarket.

I take exception to you and Morrisons labelling him as a yob and someone who is likely to abuse staff. Hence my post on this dicussion board.

We are talking about 5 children who caused a nuisance in the store causing a blanket ban on all children.

The police should have been called in the first place for these children and the children prosecuted, which to be fair to Morrisons they have realsied and apologised for their mistake.

I don't know how old you are but I can quote several stories of adults of varying ages from mid 20s to pensioners who have stolen from the store or verbally abused the staff, imagine if someone of the same age as you were to do this but instead of calling the police and prosecuting the individual they banned everybody in your age range!! It's no different than what has just happened to my son.

Out of interest, how do they know if someone is 16?

I don't know, I guess judging by what happened to my son by looking at them and guessing.

I know they appear on Morrisons advertise but they are not targeting teenagers to get their weekly shipping from there

I wonder what they do for 16 year olds... it's a hard age to 'prove' with no drivers licence etc. And some poor young-looking people might not be able to get in during their early 20s, unless carrying ID. Ridiculous and weird!

My teenagers like Ant and Dec from their shows like I'm A Celebrity... and Britain's Got Talent.

Don't judge me. Just stating a fact.

Fair enough line runner.
I just can't be doing with the shit hysteria that goes on here.
Yeah get Ant and Dec involved! That'll sort everything instead if being logical and actually dealing with the supermarket directly and then head office.

jw12345 - that's really out or order from you. I never called your son a yob. That is for sure. The children that abuse the staff and steal are in this category.

Round here, young men in their twenties very often go into shops in groups. You could call it packs if you like. Some of them are drunk and abusive and many of them use very bad language indeed. Would you really feel it acceptable if the shop put up a sign that young men between 20 and 30 are only allowed into the shop if accompanied by an older person?

they could ban drunkards though

I just thought the shop was right to ban kids seeing as they have had abuse and stealing. It's a choice of letting the shop floor staff take abuse and feel threatened in their jobs and having stick stolen or be able to do their jobs and help customers.

Ban the drunks from the shop. The shop has a responsibility to ensure a safe working environment for staff and a safe place for the customers

jw12345 - if I was told I couldn't go into a shop because people that similiar to me had been abusive and stealing I would be shocked but not at the shop. I would be shocked to hear about the other people and I'd be sympathetic to the staff. I would go somewhere else but not be complaining on the shops attitude to me. It's nothing personal against me it's to stop the other people from causing a problem to the staff.

Middle-aged people do not move & act in packs the way teenagers do. That's a ridiculous comparison. They also are not all released in one giant wave every day at 3.30

Yes they do, have you never seen a supermarket just after school kick out time?

This is the last post I will be putting on this thread but I just wantd to say that some people seem to have misunderstood or presumed what was originally being said. The majority of people commenting on this thread understood that everyone fully supported the staff at morrisons and not for one minute did we think that it was ok to verbally abuse staff or steal. This is disgusting behaviour that should be dealt with properly.

The point was this was caused by very few individuals and meant that children who are good and well behaved were being branded and penalised by lazy, knee jerk policies. The message given out is wrong and the better example is for these children to be prosecuted to show that behaviour like this is not tolerated.

I did not agree with the generalisation that all under 16s are yobs and are going to verbally abuse staff because this is not the case.

People commenting on this post need to read the original posts first.

OP I think you raised a very good point for discussion, and that you should simply ignore the Professionally Provocative on here.