I had such an unfortunate, and completely avoidable, experience at this ACE today. I work for an art gallery that is part of a local educational institution. We have a lot of options when it comes to purchasing but today we decided to go small, locally-owned and support this ACE. The store itself is fine. A fair amount of selection crammed tightly into a small space. We found what we needed and made the purchase.
We dropped our heavy bags off at the car parked in the lot adjacent and ran quickly into the coffee shop next door. We were in there no more than 15 minutes (coffee shop can attest) and ACE had called to have our car towed. The only signage in the lot, which is painted on the parking curbs, says "ACE parking only". There is no time-limit signage or anything additional to indicate that if you patronize ACE and then do any other, even quick, shopping in the area that you will be towed.
We spoke to the employees and explained we had been customers of the store no more than 20 minutes prior. We asked if there was anything they could do to help. The employees deferred to the manager. We spoke to the store manager "JC" (a.k.a. John as stated on his nametag) and he was so rude. Very dismissive. Totally unapologetic. Gave no indication of care that we had just patronized his business and with our purchases had used their parking lot.
We left without much of a fuss, really just trying to get a grasp on the situation and understand why and how our car was towed. Waiting for a ride from a friend, we began talking more and decided to try to talk to JC (John) again or at least ask for his business card to follow up.
We waited politely in the store for him to finish helping a customer. He went to the back and didn't return until another employee paged him for us. When he got to the front, JC (John) escorted us outside to speak (in a bit of an aggressive manor, but okay, fine). We very calmly asked questions just to clarify the situation and understand why, if we were customers of their business, we were still towed. He stated that because we were not in the store at the time we were towed, it was completely fine (both legally [which is true, yes] and ethically). We asked why it was not okay, "were we inhibiting other customers from parking in one of the 18 spots?" JC (John) said that was beside the point (not really answering the question, knowing we were the only car in the lot at the time). After that he said he had nothing left to say and stormed inside.
We remained calm and simply inquisitive the whole time. Willing to listen to JC's (John's) responses and trying to understand the situation. We were perfectly willing to secede that yes, at the time of towing we were not in the ACE store, etc. But, JC (John) never answered any of our questions directly and his body language, with wild, big movements, and aggressive tone of voice were so offensive and unnecessary.
Luckily, the store employee who paged him for us was able to provide us with his business card as well as the owner's card. We will be contacting the owner directly to file a complaint both about the towing issue and the store manager's behavior and response. Additionally, the 4 Schreiner ACE hardwares (High St, Parsons Ave, Grandview and Worthington) have lost all of our future business. read more