THE owner of a Tamworth gift shop has rejected a claim of discrimination after a staff member allegedly ordered a wheelchair-bound man out of the store.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Utopian Bazaar owner Michael Macarthur said the accusation, posted on a popular local Facebook page yesterday morning, was “unfair and unjustified”.
The complainant, who has been confined to a wheelchair for more than two decades, created a social media storm when he detailed his alleged experience online.
He said he entered the store to do some early Christmas shopping and was “promptly asked” by a female shop assistant “to leave the store”.
The man claimed he was told that “we don’t allow people in wheelchairs in the shop because they might break something”.
The post attracted dozens of comments from people calling for a boycott of the store and urging the man, who did not wish to be identified, to take legal action.
One poster alleged that his wife, who is also in a wheelchair, had been “told to leave the store for the same reason” last year, while others said the same policy applied to women with prams.
But Mr Macarthur, who owns Utopian Bazaar stores in Tamworth, Taree and Port Macquarie, vehemently denied the man was told to leave the shop.
He told The Leader that staff were merely required to warn people in wheelchairs that aisles in the store’s furniture section were very narrow and to be careful.
“What my staff have been instructed to do ... is to advise the people who bring in prams or wheelchairs to please be careful in this section as some of the passages are narrow and if you damage anything you’ll have to pay for it,” he said.
“I’ve been in Tamworth 15 years and surely you would think that if I behaved in that manner, or instructed my staff to behave in that manner, it would have come to the attention of others much earlier.
“I’m very sorry that man has taken it the wrong way. We do not turn people in wheelchairs away.”
Mr Macarthur, who has been in retail for more than 20 years, said the store needed to ensure customers showed care when moving amid items worth many thousands of dollars.
“Our policies are born out of experience,” he said. “They knock something over and don’t tell us, or we see it on CCTV.
“That’s the unfortunate part of being in retail and now we are being unfairly and unjustifiably targeted by someone who doesn’t have all the information.”
