daughter was asked to leave homebase because she's under 18?

[whatisgoingonitw]

My daughter and her friend (both 15) went shopping yesterday and nipped into Homebase as my daughter wanted a plant and her friend wanted a heated blanket. They were approached by a member of staff who said “what age are you both you don’t look old enough to be in here” they replied 15. The member of staff asked them to leave as you need to be 18 to shop. My daughter is very straight forward and says how it is, she told the member of staff no as that is not true. The girls continued to walk around the store and they were followed by this lady who works there. They got to the till and paid with no issues the employee at the till didn’t mention age. My daughter told me this when she got home and explained the employee was rude and followed them around the store as well as giving them “dirty looks” I rung the store today to speak to a manager as that customer service is not okay. He told me you do infact need to be with an adult 18+ to shop. Is this serious? I can’t find anything on the website.

I'm a grown woman. I was ID to buy a succulent in Morrisons ffs. Apparently it could be used as a 'dangerous weapon ' ..... it had no spines (not a cactus) and was soft to touch.
Some shops rules a nuts.
I too lived left home at 15, had my own place at 16.

I wasn’t aware of this. They really should have signs up in the shop as it’ll help staff as well when dealing with people who dispute it. (If they do I’ve missed them)

I did have some unfair experiences shopping as a teen and never stuck up for myself so it’s good that some teenagers are more confident.

No she doesn't sound annoying! Why shouldn't she stick up for herself. If you were being followed around a shop and harrased I'm sure you would say something.

Can you link?

She wasn’t being harassed though. She was asked to leave but challenged this and refused, so the staff member followed her around without making a scene or fuss.

Products do, shops don't (unless it's for things like sex toys or vaping but as far as I know Homebase doesn't sell either of those categories of products).

But the Equality Act allows services to discriminate on grounds of age to the extent that someone is under 18 (so eg B&Bs can say they don't accommodate kids) so in theory Homebase can do this. The question is why? They sell lots of things a child can safely buy. Is it because it's dangerous with all the pallets and large trolleys around?

I am also pleased your daughter stood up for herself OP. You can be assertive without being aggressive and it's ok for women to have opinions!

Why did she have no manners? Because she was 15 and meant to defer to adults?

Adults can be wrong. Frequently. Very frequently.

Perhaps this is Homebase's policy but it is fine for the OP's DD to question it, and you have no evidence that she was rude.

It doesn't seem to actually be a rule, the only one anyone has found is that under 18s should be supervised by an adult while shopping on their website, nothing about in store. It's probably just a misinterpretation of that so somebody needs to tell the manager that he's giving the staff incorrect information.

I was once told by a bank employee that by law she HAD to freeze my and my estranged husband's joint account. She told me she'd been in banking for 30 years so knew the law. I insisted she go and find out the exact law and show it to me if she was going to leave me and my children destitute. She went off and came back later and told me it wasn't the law, just advisable as either of us could empty the bank account leaving the other with nothing. I was aware of this and thought the risk was minimal and better than her plan to leave us all with no money and with all our direct debits bouncing!

If a rule or law doesn't sound quite right, question it.

A young girl standing up for herself is not annoying.

Unless for some bizarre reason the OP’s daughter is an expert on Homebase store policies it was very rude and unreasonable to simply tell a staff member that it ‘wasn’t true’.

I would have thought it's a health and safety policy.
DIY stores are hazardous with racking, heavy duty items and forklifts. They can't have unsupervised children running around - I've seen signs in store advising parents not to allow children to climb on/ into racks and shelving.
It's likely a blanket policy and whilst your daughter is sensible and well behaved not all children / teens are.
( I'm thinking of the 3 teenage girls running around Sainsbury's playing some sort of chase game yesterday 🙄)

By the responses on here you'd think that teens aren't stabbing and chopping each other up. It should be done politely but it's fine to limit how many teens are in a store. It keeps everyone safe in some areas. Where you live, you might not have a issue of girls distracting, while the lads leg it with what they really want. Or girls getting involved knowing staff are nervous to search etc. We all know kids can mess about in shops, a DIY shop isn't the place to do that. It's controversial to only implement restrictions in some areas, so these things become blanket.
Re 16 year old in accommodation, there's someone who can buy knives etc for them. There's support workers, as well as SWs, if there's no family to help out.

This: there is no age limit in law for contracts of sale - outside that pertaining to land/property or age restricted items. The fact that a store sells age restricted items does not give them license to bar people under that age either (cafe/restaurants do not bar teens coming for pizza and coffee simply because they are licensed to sell alcohol).

Kids have bank accounts/debit cards from 13 and younger with some banks, are able to make online purchases, go into supermarkets to buy snacks, sweets, magazines etc

Homebase’s own terms & conditions on their website says nothing about people under 18 not having the right to shop in their stores, or be employed in them either, so this seems to be a policy implemented by the individual store’s management which is discriminatory. The security officer also over-stepped. I’d complain to Head Office.

@MaloneMeadow too right I'd tell someone to piss off if I was innocently shopping and approached by a shop worker and told to leave, because of my age or some other characteristic they didn't like!
^
If that makes me a horrible person, so be it!

If Homebase wish to pursue this policy, it needs to be made very clear outside the store, before kids come in. And a reason given.^ Everyone is entitled to a decent explanation why they are being excluded. If it's genuinely because they have legal liability in the case of an accident, this ought to have been nicely communicated to the girls - the store could have helped them a bit more, since they were genuine shoppers. But no, because they were kids, they are seemingly not entitled to an explanation or any kind of customer service. And we wonder why kids have attitude!

If it is a policy, it needs to be clearly signposted on the door. Surely that’s obvious? Otherwise people are definitely going to dispute it (because it sounds made up).

Still waiting for someone to cite an actual source for this rule though. Someone upthread suggested they’d Googled it and found it easily- but no evidence?

Not really enjoying all the teenage-girl-bashing on this thread really. Some misogynistic posters really love throwing around terms like ‘little madam’, don’t they? Yuck.

"Little madam" gives me the ick. God forbid a girl should have standards or boundaries or expect polite, respectful treatment!

I agree that the language used towards teenagers here is questionable.

But like I said earlier, a Poundland shop last year had one of its glass doors smashed and broken badly by teenage school kids. I don’t know their policy now on allowing teens into that shop but that was a cost to the owner which by law is criminal damage. I can’t recall but don’t think anyone was detained for the damage but in my day in 1980s as a teen if we were caught doing this our parents would have been asked to pay for the repair and we’d have apologised.

Generally I see teens in shopping centres and shops behaving normally and doing things all teens do. No bother. But on some occasions, like about a month ago in Primark, I was coming out of a shop and overheard 2 teens and their DM talking about a teen who’d shoplifted there just when they’d been there and had been caught and which they’d witnessed. Apparently the teen was thrashing around with her hands out grasping at rails of clothes and denying it was her but had a bag full of nicked stuff. This was witnessed by these people. This is in a normal everyday town/city.

I agree wholeheartedly about allowing teens to shop alone or in groups of more than one. But I also know they muck around sometimes, I did too!

About 10 years ago I started working at a high street solicitors and dealt with members of the public including people who’d sometimes be rude. We got to know all the small businesses in the area and were members of the local guild and held networking events there to support local businesses in the community. This shop is part of that business and the community as is the teen in question. They both need to rub along well.

I’ve certainly noticed in the past year post Covid better or worse customer service in shops etc and more recently people complaining or being rude or standing up for themselves so I’m not surprised this scenario has happened for OP’s DD.

Isn’t following someone considered harassment?

Employee could have gone to the manager or asked for assistance from another employee. They could have also shown proof of this rule and it should be posted where it can be visibly seen.

When OP’s DD is the one that decided to be difficult and refused to leave thinking that she knew better then no, I don’t think store employees doing their job and supervising her is harassment.

Clearly she did know better, given that she had no difficulty in buying the goods she wanted. The store employee was simply wasting her time. God knows, it's difficult enough to find someone to help you in Homebase - it adds insult to injury if the reason is that the staff are busy following dangerous teenagers buying heated blankets around the store.

Quite. It's significant that there's no real equivalent for boys.

Really? I could name quite a few equally rude equivalents.

I had a great childhood so definately not triggering 😂 Also have two wonderful children who I have no doubt will be amazing, polite, kind 16 years olds.

Unfortunately, I can’t police how other people bring up their children. Is it three 15/16 year olds stabbed to death in Bristol in the last couple of weeks? I don’t have an issue with a shop which sells alot of restricted items having a policy on no under 18 year olds in there. Im sure the OP can explain that to her daughter. And there are alot of home furnishing stores on the high street which don’t sell so many restricted items (Next, M&S, Primark all do tons of home stuff teens might like).

I went shopping every Saturday as a teen and I don’t believe Homebase/B&Q was ever on mine or my friends radar.

Look if MN wants to raise a bunch of Vicky Pollards then that's up to them.

It's rude to ignore the staff member and "say it as it is" Vicky Pollard - yeah but no but and "dirty looks" Vicky Pollard -don't be giving me daggers.

The person on the till was probably unsure and served Vicky Pollard to not create a scene. 🤔

Agree with this 100%. I’d be mortified if my teen DD spoke to store workers in this way