After a customer used a gay slur and an employee laughed, a gay customer demanded to see the manager to file a complaint
INVOLVED | In this file photo, Walgreens participated in AIDS Walk South Dallas. The company has consistently shown its support for the community. (David Taffet/Dallas Voice.)
When Mark Alan Smith recently heard a woman in Walgreen’s on Cedar Springs Road say, “You punk-ass gay guys act like that, and it will get you killed,” he was angry. When the cashier laughed with the woman, and no other gay person in the store bothered to corroborate his story to the manager on duty, he was furious.
Walgreen’s store manager James Ross said he took the incident seriously, and all issues were addressed with the employee. Local activists said it’s worrisome when incidents like this happen anywhere, but when they happen on Cedar Springs, it’s extremely troubling.
Smith said he was waiting in one of the checkout lines at Walgreens on March 14. Another register opened, and a woman from the back of the line pushed ahead of everyone to be first at that register.
Taken aback by the woman’s discourtesy of cutting in line, the man in line in front of Smith asked, “What just happened?”
The woman who had just opened the register said, “I said next.”
Smith said had she actually said “Next,” one of the four people in line in front of him who were closer to the newly opened register would have heard her.
“I thought ‘girl, you are in the wrong place to be throwing an attitude,’” Smith said. “‘These queens up in here will let you have it.’”
The woman who cut in line was still at the register when the man in front of Smith paid at his counter. As he walked toward the door, he tripped on that woman’s basket.
“Hey you, why did you kick my basket?” she asked.
“It was in the middle of the floor,” he said. “I tripped over it.”
While that exchange happened, Smith said the employee at the register was laughing with the woman about what happened.
Smith told his cashier he should call the store manager, and he asked the woman if she knew where she was. He told her she was in the middle of the gay community. He turned and walked toward the door.
At that point, she made her “You punk-ass gay guys act like that, and it will get you killed” remark.
Smith said he walked out, stopped, turned and went back in to talk to the manager, fuming.
He said that it might have been the woman’s inappropriate comment that got him back in the store, but it was the cashier laughing about it that made him decide the incident couldn’t go unreported. He walked back in the store and asked for the manager.
Smith said what disappointed him more than anything was no other gay person in the store corroborated his story. But one elderly woman did.
“I agree with him,” she said to the assistant manager. “It’s not right.”
The assistant manager called the police and went into the parking lot to collect baskets while she waited for them to arrive. Smith followed her, so visibly upset tears were running down his cheeks.
“Don’t be upset,” she told them. “We have a few gay customers that come in here.”
“A few?” he asked.
Smith decided to leave and call Walgreen’s corporate office from home. No police incident report was filed.
Ross, who is not only the manager of the Cedar Springs store, but also is the community leader over five area stores. He wasn’t in the store when the incident occurred, but he addressed it on Monday. He said the incident concerned him and wasn’t something that should happen in any of the stores he oversees.
“I’ve addressed all issues with the employee,” he said. “And I encourage any customer with any issue to please let me know.”
Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance President Patti Fink said a lot of people who shop on Cedar Springs might not even know what neighborhood they’re in.
“Many come from the Melrose,” she said.
She said there’s not much a store can do about a customer, but Walgreen’s did the right thing by addressing the employees.
Resource Center Communications and Advocacy Manager Rafael McDonnell conducts employment training seminars for businesses and agencies. He said Walgreen’s has clear nondiscrimination policies, and there are consequences for violating those policies.
“We live in a gay bubble and think it can’t happen here,” McDonnell said. “In this case it did.”
He said Ross did everything right by addressing the situation quickly.
“They do a good job reaching out to our community,” he said, citing flu shots the store provides to some Resource Center clients and products specifically for the LGBT community. “They know they’re part of the neighborhood.”
“We love this community,” Ross said.
He said without the LGBT community in the area, Walgreen’s wouldn’t be there.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition March 21, 2014.