Posted on 06/06/2012 9:50:08 AM PDT by Altariel
An Arizona doctor says he’s going to sue Barnes & Noble unless he gets an apology from an employee who tossed him from the store because he was alone in the children's section.
Dr. Omar Amin, 73, of Scottsdale, said he was browsing for books for his five- and seven-year-old grandkids at the store on May 4 when he walked into the children’s reading area to quietly answer a cellphone call.
Amin, a renowned researcher of infectious diseases, told local station KTVK that he sat on the ground to avoid bothering other shoppers with his chatter.
“This man approached me and asked if I was in the store by myself,” he told Fox News.
“He said ‘You cannot stay. This is not an area where men are allowed to be by themselves.’”
The employee told Amin that a female customer complained that he made her uncomfortable, Amin said.
The employee then told Amin to leave and “escorted me out as a potential sex offender,” he told the KTVK.
“I was upset like hell because I’ve been so insulted and humiliated in public for the charge of being a man,” he said.
Mark Bottini, the big box bookseller’s vice president and director of stores, apologized for the flap in a statement.
“It is not our policy to ask customers to leave any section of our stores without justification,” the statement said, according to KTVK. “We value Dr. Amin as a customer and look forward to welcoming him in any of our stores.”
The distinguished doc said the statement didn’t go far enough.
“I do not intend to let this slide by," Amin told FoxNews.com. "I want the person who insulted me in the store to apologize to me in public, in the store, and on camera. If I do not get that, I am going to court,” he told Fox News.
He also said he wants the company to prove it reprimanded the employee who confronted him.
“I did not break any rules,” he said.
IF his story is true as told; I have to side with the doc on this one...
I side with the doctor on this one. Unless there is evidence of predatory behaviour, you leave a guy alone about his business.
He should switch to proctology. He’s definitely anal.
Tell her to find a pillow and mind her own business.
73 year old man alone in store sitting on the floor of the children’s reading section is suspicious and creepy. B&N has plenty of chairs and benches in other areas that he could have settled.
Unless B&N has a written posted notice of this policy at the entrance to the children’s section, the doctor is correct, he should not have been asked to leave.
Exactly.
What if had been a man who was uncomfortable with a woman shopping alone in the children’s section?
The reaction should be the same in this case. People need to learn to grow up and realize the notion “I’m uncomfortable with a man minding his own business and quietly shopping (and taking a private phone call)” is their *personal* problem, not the man’s problem.
The whole world is getting paranoid.
This was a stupid thing for the store to do, but I do hope the doctor is a big liberal, just to give him a taste of what the nanny-state political correctness feels like.
He was publicly treated as a sex offender.
Its obvious that you’d roll over if this happened to you: I’m glad the Doctor is taking it more seriously.
And just what relief will you be asking for Doctor? You have no damages. No lawyer would take your case on a contingency basis because there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Man up and get over it.
“The employee told Amin that a female customer complained that he made her uncomfortable, Amin said.”
###
Know what?
I’m “uncomfortable” with sh!t disturbing, pathologically suspicious females, who think every male is a predator waiting to attack.
What about the female customers complaint? How should that have been handled?
What if Dr. Omar Amin looked like a muslim?
I am not paranoid! Everyone IS out to get me! ;-D
I am not paranoid! Everyone IS out to get me! ;-D
This story is diametrically opposed to the story on the internet yesterday which stated that Dr Amin was satisfied with the apology and just wanted to regain anonymity and go on with his life.
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