A mom of three claimed she was thrown out of a UK supermarket after a male security guard said that her backless top could encourage someone to untie it.
Alixe Galatis, 31, said she was stopped while trying to shop at a Tesco store in Essex, southeast England, with her three children on June 26, when temperatures in the UK reached 99 degrees Fahrenheit amid the country’s heat wave.
The mom of three said she was told she couldn’t enter because of her backless top, which featured thin straps tied at the back, Kennedy News reported.
“It was just after the school run, I think it peaked around 36, 37 [degrees Celsius] or something crazy,” she said.
“The kids were picking up the [scan gun] and then the security was standing behind us. When I turned around he said, ‘You’re not allowed in here.’
“I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘You can’t come in here wearing that top because it’s got a tie-up at the back.’
“I was just really confused and the kids were a bit stunned. I don’t know why but he wouldn’t give me any eye contact.”
Galatis said the guard then told her, “Someone can untie your top,” suggesting she could be left exposed to creeps.
“Again, I looked at him so confused because that’s something that I’ve never even thought of,” she said.
“I said, ‘OK, so can I go and buy a top then because I just want to get the shopping done?’ and he said, ‘No, you’re not allowed in at all.’”
The stay-at-home mom said she went back to her car, grabbed a gym sweatshirt and, amid the sweltering heat, draped it over her shoulders before returning to the store to finish shopping.
“The only thing I had in my car was my gym jumper,” she said. “It was so hot and I was thinking ‘I can’t physically put this on,’ so I put it over my shoulders so it was covering my shoulders and my back.
“We did our shop, I had the jumper around me, and then on the way out he was watching me walk out,” she said. “He was looking at me with such disdain and just shaking his head at me.
“I was just completely shocked. Why should I not be allowed in the shop? If someone ever, God forbid, tried to undress me why would that be my fault?”
Galatis later filed a complaint with Tesco and said she has no plans to shop there again.
“Sometimes I pop in wearing gym gear and no one’s ever stopped me,” she said. “It was just so bizarre that it was this top and that he said, ‘Someone can untie it and leave you exposed.’
“Should you not be more worried about those who are untying people’s clothing rather than stopping the person who is dressed?”
A Tesco spokesperson said: “We are really sorry to hear about this experience. We want everyone to feel welcome in our stores and this should not have happened.”
Europe was scorched by a brutal heat wave in late June, with temperatures soaring across the continent and thousands of excess deaths reported.
The sweltering conditions also sparked chaos in France, where desperate shoppers clashed over air conditioners and fans, shoving and scrambling for the last cooling units in stores.
With Post wires
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