As of last week, I was a loyal customer of this Wegmans. I had been one for 12 years. I did almost all my shopping here, spending at least $1,000 a month. However, a string of incidents made me realize I'm no longer safe shopping here.
The photo attached here is not from Wegmans. It's from Whole Foods in Columbia. Until recently, I considered this Whole Foods policy overly strict. But the incidents at Wegmans showed me why this kind of policy is necessary.
In addition to grocery shopping, I frequently dined at the Wegmans cafe. One thing I observed there was that Wegmans is lax about loitering. There are many people who apparently go there just to hang out. I never saw them with food or beverages; they just sat around. When I went there in the morning, or in the evening, or during the day - same faces. Which is not my business. Many of these loiterers were clearly mentally unstable. Which is not my business either. I saw some incidents - one guy trashed the restroom, one guy was led away in handcuffs by the police (I have no knowledge of the incident) - but my shopping and dining were not disrupted.
No place of business is immune to such incidents. And you can't expect a manager to eagle-eye every customer. But at Wegmans, the trend is especially clear. I guess if word gets out that a store with ample seating allows loitering, this is what you get. If you asked me, "Where do you see a lot of mentally unstable/possibly homeless people hanging out/loitering?", I would say, "Public libraries. Parks. Wegmans." Again, that's not supposed to be my concern. I wish it had stayed that way.
I guess it had to happen eventually. One of the frequent loiterers, an older woman, displayed hostile behavior toward me for no apparent reason; I had never interacted with her before. She made a middle finger gesture at me and coughed loudly in my face. I reported her behavior to the manager. The manager spoke to her and then followed up with me. He told me she wanted me to stay as far away from her as possible. I told him I didn't want any trouble but that I wasn't going to play games. She and I were in two separate sections of the cafe; I was nowhere near her personal space. The manager seemed confused as to how to handle the situation. He said to me, "I guess just stay away from her?"
Last week, I was in the store again. They have a balcony dining area. I stepped out there to see if I might like to dine there. Then, I heard the lady's voice behind me, yelling angrily at me, accusing me of "following" her. I went inside to report the incident. When I got to the customer service counter, the lady was there, ranting to the manager, telling them I had invaded her "space" (the balcony is a wide area with ample seating; it's not one person's private space), and that I was "following" her. She turned around, saw me, and yelled at me that she was going to call the police.
I returned to the dining area and had my dinner. As I got up to leave, I saw the manager approaching me, accompanied by a police officer. The officer told me that the lady's complaints were not clear or coherent; I was being accused of "following" her because she had seen me in the same section of the store as her. The officer admitted that the lady seemed mentally unstable and advised me to avoid engaging with her.
If I continue going to this store, the incident is bound to repeat. Again, all it takes is for me to coincidentally, inadvertently be in the same section of the store as her. The manager will continue to be carefully neutral. Hence, the lady will continue to feel enabled and empowered by this lax management. Will I eventually have to defend myself against false charges? That's not a good position to be in, even if you're innocent of wrongdoing. It's obviously not worth it in this case.
Which brings me back to the Whole Foods policy, as shown in the photo here. I've learned, through these incidents at Wegmans, that Whole Foods is doing the right thing. A few years ago, Whole Foods was lax about loitering. But when loiterers hung around, incidents occurred. I saw one incident; a mentally unstable/possibly homeless man, who had taken up residence in the store's seating area, spat on a passing customer and made a middle finger gesture at him. But instead of trying to appease "both sides" and hoping the problem would resolve itself, the Whole Foods managers implemented a policy that may look overly strict at first, but if you're the kind of "customer" who's "inconvenienced" by such policies, you're part of a problem that can potentially drive legitimate paying customers away.
Unfortunately, I won't be returning to this Wegmans.