the stick, the stone and the puddle

most consumer/customer safety issues usually are related to ensuring injury or health related issues do not occur due to the use or consumption of the product purchased.  however, a store is and should be responsible for the safety of its consumers while on all the premises of the respective store. some might argue that they are, and fair enough, most (if not all) stores are usually careful in regards to the safety of the customer while inside the store, the designated parking lots are part of the store as well.

last night, part of the grocery shopping took us to the real canadian superstore. while i won’t divulge which one, i will say that it is in vancouver (you’ll see why later). while approaching the car with the cart following the shopping experience, a homeless person approached us and demanded to take the cart back to its ‘parking’ spot. to put this in perspective for some of you, in order to use the carts at superstore one needs to place a loonie (a $1 coin) in the cart; which gets returned when taking the cart back. now, i’m not picking on superstore, but it’s quite clear as to why some homeless will chose superstore over other stores to ‘provide’ this service; and thus why you see these people in superstore parking lots rather than safeway, save-on-foods and walmart.

this is not the first time a homeless person has approached us in order to ask to take the cart back so that they receive the $1. however, this is the first time the person seemed demanding and very pushy. the guy, once i refused, turned around and approached the person parked next to my car. following this, he made his way into the covered parking area for the carts (an area which tends to be a bit darker). regardless, the pushiness and the fact that i spotted to of them in close proximity to each other…made me wonder.

first off, it’s not the first time it happened. it’s actually the ‘nth’ time. some might argue that they are making an effort to provide some sort of a service for the $1, in comparison to the ones on the street that simply beg. however, what will happen when they simply won’t accept a refusal by walking away? it’s not such an extreme idea. over the summer in vancouver, there have been reported incidence where beggars became aggressive once their request were refused. what will happen when the $1 is not enough and they ask for me. or better yet, what will happen starting december (given than from the 4th of december, superstore decide to combat walmart’s idea and keep some stores open 24h) if a woman is alone and walking to her car in the late hours of a day and refuses to accept the request?

so, this brings me to my point. who should be responsible for the safety of the customers in the parking lot of a store? should it be store? should it be the police of the city? or should it be a joint effort? i’d like to see the vancouver rcmp put this on their priority list. doubt it will happen. but i do wonder how superstore will respond to being put this question. i wonder how the vancouver mayor’s office will respond when questioned about this.

i do think that a store should be responsible for the safety of its shoppers from the time they enter their parking lot to the time the exit; limiting this only to safety in regards to injury or hurt but not due to consumption of the products. so this begs the question, should one continue to shop there if one does not feel 100% safe on the premises of the store? should one bring this up to with the store? the city hall? whom? well, i did provide superstore with my complaint earlier today. i am waiting to see how they will handle this.