Joe sent a message to Bob Sasser – Chief Executive Officer and President of Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. – Email Address that said:
Hi Mr. Bob Sasser,
On December 4th, 2016 I took my son to pick up a couple of items at the Dollar Tree store located at 2294 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11210 (store id 5305) at approximately 8:18PM.
When I finished shopping, I went to one of the two open checkouts. There was one customer in front of me there, but the teller told me that she was closing so I went to the second open checkout where there were two customers before me.
The customer that was with the teller had many items. After waiting for over ten minutes the first checkout reopened but there were a few customers behind me who quickly switched to that checkout, so I remained where I was. The customer who was immediately ahead of me also left the line. After about 15 minutes on line, my cashier announced that her line was closing after she finished with her current customer, the one that had been there all this time.
Shocked, I asked if she meant that she was closing after me since I've been waiting on this line for 15 min? She completely ignored me so having no choice, I went back to the first checkout where I waited another five minutes. After I paid, I asked the cashier if she is a manager, she said no and that the manager will be in only tomorrow morning. I asked for her name and she said it was Keisah.
As we were walking to the door, the cashier who had ignored me was sweeping the floor. I politely asked her if she thought it was fair that she closed the line before me even though I was standing online for 15 min. She shouted back that I wasn't standing for 15 min. I asked for her name but she refused to give me it. I walked out of the store but then, figuring that I would have no way to identify her tomorrow to the manager, I quickly took a picture of her with my phone. At that point she ran out of the store screaming at me, how dare I take a picture of her and she proceeded to call 911.
She described me to the dispatcher as a Jewish man that was stalking her and taking pictures.
While waiting for the police to arrive, she kept on on about "my people" and how we "think we can do whatever we want". Another employee who came out to see what was going on starting to berate me and my religion as well, as if there is something wrong with "all of my people".
The cops arrived and she told them that she wanted to press charges against me because I snapped a picture of her. The officer told her that she can't since it's a public place. When they asked me what happened, I explained to them what happened with my wait on line and that I only snapped a picture because I wanted to report what happened to the manager and she didn't want to give me her name.
The 2nd officer asked me to delete the picture, which I did (even though it was within my right to take) just not to let the matter escalate, especially since I was being publicly berated, and in front of my son.
I am still shaken from this entire ordeal. This store location is in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, many of whom shop at this Dollar Tree branch. Anti-Semitic rhetoric should never be tolerated, and even more so in a store that is so popular in the Jewish community.
On a customer service level, the fact that a cashier would close her register on customers that have been waiting patiently in line is also shocking.
Lastly, this terribly embarrassing ordeal could've been avoided if the store employees wore name tags.
This store opened about a year ago and we were very excited for this new addition to the neighborhood. Unfortunately this situation left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope that my concerns will be addressed so that my family and I can continue to shop in our local Dollar Tree store.
Thank you,
Joe