On December 11, 2020 My wife, daughter, and I visited the store in Round Rock Texas to purchase Christmas pieces of Le Creuset cook ware.
In the state of Texas by order of Governor Greg Abbott, face masks or face coverings are not required to be worn if you have a medical condition. My wife and I both have medical conditions preventing the wearing of masks.
Upon entering the Round Rock store one of your employees, "Darcy", became highly agitated because we were not wearing masks. She was walking around the store saying things like, "You people are the reason Covid-19 is continuing to thrive". "You people are threatening my life and the lives of other store employees and the lives of other customers". She continually walked around the store muttering derogatory statements.
She then called security to come stand in the store for some reason unbeknown to us. We were there to buy cook ware, not to be harassed by your employees. Darcy was absolutely on the verge of having a stroke because the veins were standing out on her neck in anger.
During this time the Le Creuset regional manager, "Lorie", came into the store and she told us that we were not welcome in the store and that we were breaking store policy. Lorie informed us, when we explained our medical condition, "we set the rules for our store not the governor". This was indeed strange because two weeks prior, we had been in the same store and Lorie was gracious and understanding, particularly since we spent approximately $1,000.
She and Darcy went around the store frantically sanitizing all of the places we had been and pieces we had touched. Both of them were muttering about us while we were still shopping. At one point Darcy even informed us that she came from "good roots". With that said, my daughter smiled and kindly responded, "we come from good roots too". Darcy threw her rag, down abruptly and practically yelled back "I doubt that"! "Otherwise you would not be going around threatening the lives of everyone else". She continued attacking us verbally both as shoppers and as people personally.
She and Lorie were raising their voices to the point of practically yelling at us multiple times throughout our brief time shopping. None of us raised our voice or spoke negatively to anyone there, however, we did try to calmly explain that the 'mandate' is not the same as a law and that even within the mandate it explains that for anyone with a health condition, there is a section explaining that masks are not required. My wife even offered to show her the information as both my wife and I try to always carry the information that our doctor and attorney recommend so that we avoid this type of treatment and situation. Carrying this also protects the businesses that we enter as it explains that pushing or demanding us to wear a mask against our doctors orders opens up any company to a $75,000 fine as HIPPA protects our rights regarding health conditions. Unfortunately, Lorie refused to even listen and said that she was going to call corporate and if corporate did not agree with her then she would quit her job because she is as high up as a manager can be and she is there to enforce the companies policies.
Darcy went outside and told the people waiting outside in a line, "See those people inside without a mask?" "They are the reason you are having to wait outside". "We have to sanitize the entire store now that they have contaminated it".
Needless to say the people outside were aghast at that statement. Several of them even explained to her that they were more than ok with the employees not sanitizing every square inch of the store and that they would happily come in after us or even with us as they themselves would prefer to not wear a mask if given the choice. A gentleman that was waiting outside when we left is the one who graciously told us what was said as we heard pieces but not all of what she told them. We apologized and thanked them for their patience as they were told to wait outside and that it was "all those people's fault". When we finished shopping, the people outside all but apologized to us for the way that the employees were treating us.
What is really perplexing was that the employee assisting us, "Diane" never said the first word about store policy after we simply explained that we had health conditions preventing the wearing of the masks. She did not bring up contamination, dying friends, us killing their other shoppers, or any other hysterical statements that Lorie and Darcy were berating us with.
Yesterday we spent another $1,000 in cook ware for my daughter. In the recent past, we approximately spent $2,000 in Le Creuset cook ware, not counting the multitude of other pieces we purchased prior to Covid. To be treated in such a manner, was more than disheartening to put it mildly.
Diane profusely apologized to me when she delivered the cook ware to my car. She said that 'the situation" was completely mishandled. read more
