I had a group of 80 people camping at Fall Creek Falls for a 4th of July Family Reunion. My sister,…read moremyself and my Sister In Law ran to this Walmart to purchase a birthday cake and other items and while we were there we decided to get some beer and Lemonade drinks with alchohol in them. We approached cash register 4 where an elderly cashier proceeded to check us out. I had the beer at the end of the belt with a seperator stick so I could pay for it separately. About halfway through ringing up the food order, the cashier asks for ID for the beer. I give her mine and she says, I need ALL of your ID's. I said, what? Since when did Walmart start carding EVERYONE in the party and not just the person buying the beer? She stated that the store started that in May and it's their way of preventing sales of alcohol to underage people. ?????? The two other women handed over their ID's and at this point a young red headed lady with glasses interjected in our conversation with the cashier saying, Yeah, we have to ID everyone in the party, it's our procedure. She was snippy and abrasive. When it came time to ring up the beer, I didn't see her scan or ring in ANY of the ID's for that purchase. Being that I have lived in TN for 15 years and have shopped at many Walmarts wihin the state, this interaction was bothering me because it was off putting and so random and targeted. The attitude of both the Walmart employees was abrasive and off putting and when I vocalized my discontent, they both were flippant with their response with one saying, "There's nothing I can do about it, its store policy".
I understand TN ID laws regarding alcohol and I would never complain as there are laws in place for a reason, HOWEVER, in this case, my party had 3 Hispanic women, speaking Spanish, tan skinned and we are the ages of 66, 58 and 48. As flattering as it may be to THINK we look under 40, we don't although we try our hardest. After the transaction and leaving the store, I got to the car and thought, I need to go speak to the Manager about this so I went to find him. I approached 2 men at the service counter, one young and one older and balding. I asked for the Manager and they said they are BOTH the Managers and the older man gave me the once over, up and down look and sneered and walked away. Now I know we were in casual wear but I was well put together and not looking like a vagrant so I didn't understand his reaction to me. I asked the young Manager where I could find the Walmart Policy and Procedure on their alcohol ID policy because I was on line at that moment looking for it and what the cashiers had told me (they had to ID everyone in the party), did not match the policy I was reading on the Walmart website. He goes on to tell me the policy of ID'ing everyone in the policy was implemented on July 1st of THIS year, (my visit was July 2nd).....???? So I said......you're telling me that if 1 person out of the 3 of us DID NOT have ID on them, you would have refused the sale of the alcohol? He responded.....yes!
I told him we drove 45 minutes to get to that store and if this is, in fact, their policy, don't you think you should let your customers know?? Where's the signage?? I mean, to drive that far and be denied because we didn't know we would ALL get carded would be just as off putting as the treatment we recieved. He told me that I would not be able to find that particular policy on the Walmart website because it is NOT available for customers to see???????????????????????????????????????
This kid thinks I was born yesterday obviously. He apologized and I told him I would be contacting the corporate office because for the first time in my 58 years, I felt discriminated against. He told me thats fine and to have a nice day. A few days later I called the store to speak with the Manager again and this time I had the displeasure of speaking with Mark the Manager. I reminded him of who I was and asked for the cashiers names that we checked out with and he refused to give their information to me. I explained I had called the corporate complaint line and the operator told me Walmart policy is to card the person buying the alcohol, NOT the whole party so the cashier SHOULD NOT have asked for ID from all of us. Mark responded by telling me that he is not giving me the cashiers names, he stands by thier decision to card the whole party AND that I CAN CALL CORPORATE ALL I WANT TO, HE DOESN'T CARE, he said he's been doing this for 26 years and will not have this conversation with me. ? So much for customer service, I guess that explains the 1 star rating on this store. I filed a complaint with the Ethics Division of Walmart and hopefully they will retrain these employees on consistent and equal treatment of customers because we conducted an "experiment" of our own and sent in 3 different groups from our family reunion to buy beer. They only carded the purchaser of the beer. Hhmmmm. Shame on you Mark and Walmart cashiers, failed policy!
