Question about grocery shop

I had to visit a discount grocery store. On the way in I was stopped twice by a panhandler, who was also approaching others arriving in their cars. There was no question specifically addressing this, but there was a question about if anything left an impression, either positive or negative. Should I include this? It definitely was a negative impression, because this area is familiar to me and I've never been stopped by a panhandler around here.

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YEs-Yes-Yes--please report it. I think I know the store you are talking about and they need to know that the pan handlers and cart stealers bother the customers. I am a customer and a mystery shopper for one of those stores and those people scare me sometimes.

When in doubt, report. The editor can always remove it but anything that positively or negatively affects their business needs to be shared.

OK. It's been reported.

Yes I would..it means the store should be paying more attention to security..even if it means alerting the PD. I did a shop at a location you have to use a quarter to get a shopping cart...and then get the quarter back when you return it...I had a panhandler take my cart from me and take my quarter.....he actually forcibly took it.....he was hanging out on store property doing it to many customers..

and sure...the people are needy..but you don't know why...i just heard of a scam where a cult had the women dress up as nuns to beg....

you can't tell if the person is a drug addict looking for money for another fix.....

or they could have been an abuse victim....and there through no fault of their own...you just don't know..

there was a story about women with homes and even a mercededes..acting homeless and using young children to panhandle

but personally, the threat of homelessness looms over me...i could be that person...i am in no position to be playing social service worker...

and its one thing if they sit there with something collecting money...and let people go to them....but its another approaching people...

there have been stories of mentally ill beggars getting violent

It does bother me that the homeless sit on the sidewalk in front of the door, or stand by the glass door entrance. What bothers me worse, is the stores that ignore what is going on outside....

I understand the homeless and I give a lot of my food from shops and donate small amounts when I can. It is obnoxious and sometimes scary though, when you try to walk in a store and they are standing there blocking the entrance.

The corporate client should know what is going on outside their stores.

The manager is ultimately responsible to politely tell the vagrant that he can't stand in the doorway or immediate sidewalk, which is for paying customers.

This drives the customers away, in my humble opinion, and they may decide to go "elsewhere" next time..

While the doorway could be considered private property the sidewalk may be public property so the manager could not ask someone to leave. The manager may have to call the police if there are local ordinances about vagrancy.

Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie.
"I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag." -Molly Ivins
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of your time and it really annoys the pig.

SunnyDays2 is absolutely right. A manager with any sense should know ahead of time how to deal with a situation like panhandlers, etc. who are even suspected of being potential risks . Every customer who is turned off by such behavior is very likely to remember and shop somewhere else. Enough of those and the store closes and the manager is out of a job. Then you end up running into the ex-manager out there panhandling.

I've been harassed by vagrants more than once at jobs. Just a few days ago a drunk, smelly, puking guy was yelling profanities at me while I tried to conduct a gas station audit. The cashier called the police and he left. These types of behaviors raise the hair on my arms.

I was hit up twice by pan handlers but they left after I said I got nuthin' for ya. If it was obnoxious I would report it to Customer Service and not mention it on my report unless it is necessary. I had a shop where the associate gave me inside information that could get him fired. Fortunately the shop format did not require me to report it so I did not.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230

any store should also be monitroing security outside the store....if there is someone hanging around approaching people for an extended time--obviously they are not properly monitoring

Yeah that should definitely reported. That affects the customer experience for sure. Who would come back to a store where there are panhandlers?

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