Store Fires Employee Who Refused Service To Marine

[seriousstan]

FORT WORTH, Texas -- The owner of a local convenience store tells NBC 5 he has fired an employee who mistreated a customer who is also a U.S. Marine.

The firing comes in response to protests at the store as well as an e-mail campaign circulating throughout Dallas/Fort Worth. The e-mail, written by Heather Dowell, tells of her brother's treatment while visiting the store.

According to Dowell's e-mail, her brother, Jason Young, attempted to make a purchase at the One Stop Grocery and Grill on 8th Avenue in Fort Worth. The clerk allegedly asked if Young was a Marine, and when he replied yes, the clerk left the counter and never returned.

Outraged, Dowell began the e-mail campaign calling for the boycott of the store.

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/4071942/detail.html

[rpannier]

1. If he wouldn't serve the Marine he's wrong

Just as it is wrong to arbitrarily refuse to service to anyone. I would have fired the clerk too.

[phasev]

101. well

in principle it is wrong but this clearly shows that the Christofascists have already won when they can justify not selling birth control to women on the argument that it conflicts with their beliefs.

[DRoseDARs]

2. My bullshit-o-meter is pinging... n/t

[Skittles]

3. yup, BIG time

nt

[DRoseDARs]

5. Given the content of the email, it's a safe bet the man walked away...

...because the patron said something he didn't appreciate. I'd sooner suspect someone saying "go back where they came from" of being at fault than someone walking away without comment.

[SKKY]

91. A Marine say something offensive? Naaaawww. Come on!

[stevedeshazer]

35. BS-OMETER READING:

9,002 Parlocks

[booksenkatz]

43. Did a page search for "parlock" -- thanks for saying it! LOL eom

[Cocoa]

45. ROFL

I'd forgotten all about our unlucky friend Phil. :-)

[yardwork]

74. Yep

Rush will be all over this like a goose on a june bug tomorrow and the whole thing is probably totally made up.

[Bozita]

75. perhaps a cousin of Parlock

When reading this thread, Parlock was my first thought.

[Systematic Chaos]

4. Yes, the clerk was way out of line

I can sympathize with his feelings to a degree, but anyone should be able to understand that not everyone in our military is an evil slimeball. Boycotting the store and threatening the livelihood of the owner of the business is probably a bit extreme, though. It's not like the owner of the store walked off that way, and he or she can't exactly watch his employees 24/7.

[Cocoa]

46. it didn't even happen

I guarantee you this incident didn't happen as described.

[HuffleClaw]

6. we're hearing only ONE side of this story

i'm suspicious. i just bet the marine in question FIRST made some silly comment, then the clerk left the counter. that email makes clear the attitude towards those of mideast descent. this smells.

[fleabert]

7. stinky stinky.

The 'go back where they came from' part is very very ugly. ick.

Methinks you doth protest too much.

[MADem]

8. You know what I think is absolutely SHITTY???

The QUALITY OF REPORTAGE of this story. We get Heather's email, the name of the store, the fact that the clerks were "middle eastern" (ooooooooh!!!!!), the details of the Marine's attempted purchase of a can of chew, the outrage from that side, and that's it, basta!

Where the fuck is the interview with the fired clerk? Who WAS the clerk? What the fuck does "middle eastern" mean? Was he a south west asian Afghan whose village was bombed? A Pakistani sympathizer of Bin Ladin? An Indian who has a daughter who was dating a marine and daddy don't like that shit? An Iraqi who lost his family in Falluja? A Palestinian? A Syrian? Lebanese, perhaps!!! Was the owner of the store, who rated a skinny little line at the end of the piece, even there when the event took place? What was the nature of the "misunderstanding?" How hard would it be, seeing as Heather so helpfully named the store and gave the address in her email, to waddle over there, get the guy's address, and ask ole Achmed what the hell happened? What ever became of the "two sides to every story" mantra?

Are Steve Glass and Jayson Blair working for those clowns at NBC5, or are they just a bunch of lazy fatasses who can't be bothered to do a decent job of covering this little dust-up?

This is more about faux patriotism than anything else....get the blood boiling, incite nationalistic fervor, make the sheep drink from the cup of psuedo-patriotism, and then, rule the fucking world.

Sick. Lousily written article, too!

[BikeWriter]

10. All valid points! n/t

[saigon68]

24. Yup that's IT The story is Shitty Journalism.

This will soon turn up as an Urban Legend as thousands of Toothless Witless Parents rush down to MARINE recruiting office.

Dragging their chidren on leashes, to Pump up the Corps and supply their offspring to the Bush Criminals to kill "RAG-HEADS"

Its fake and only one side of the story.

[tom_paine]

67. Just the New Journalism for the New Amerika

Such "reporting" is as common in ANY Totalitarian Nation, not just ours.

I'm glad Eric Sevareid and Ed Murrow didn;t live to see this.

[Straight Shooter]

87. Jeebers, MADem, you ask waaaay too many questions.

It's like you want the TRUTH or something. This is America. Truth doesn't matter in reporting news. /sarcasm off

[Swamp Rat]

9. Ding! Ding! Ding! Di... sorry 'bout that! That was my BS alarm going off.

It has a hair trigger. I guess I should get it looked at by a mechanic... who here services BS meters?

[BikeWriter]

13. Uh, yeah, you want it calibrated?

:)

[aikido15]

92. Wicked picture..

Scares me, too realistic!

[Swamp Rat]

94. I just finished this one:

It's a re-do of an older one.

[aikido15]

95. ewwwwwww!

[Swamp Rat]

97. Thank you

:D

[AZCat]

11. Here's a MUCH better take on the story from the Star-Telegram

E-mail 'idiots' have sender thinking twice
Posted on Sat, Jan. 08, 2005
By Bud Kennedy
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

A freedom fracas is brewing in Fort Worth, where a Marine veteran of the Iraqi battlefield says he was turned away from a local convenience store.

His Richland Hills sister sent her friends a sizzling e-mail about how her brother was refused service by a store clerk because he was wearing a gray "USMC" T-shirt.

The friends sent the e-mail to their friends. They sent it worldwide.

Now several hundred forwarded copies, countless voice mail messages, one planned store protest and one state trooper's phone call later, Heather M. Dowell wishes she had never written the letter.
</snip>

There's more of the column with a better take on the whole story.


On Edit: Check out the comments of Ruiz-Boling at the end of the column - good stuff.

[neweurope]

14. I'd rather not sign in.. why is that woman now wishing she hadn't

written that e-mail?


--------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[KDLarsen]

16. You can use Bugmenot.com for free usernames & passwords

.. and you can even download small extensions to your browser that makes it VERY easy to skip registrations-only sites.

[Occulus]

51. I just got the bugmenot firefox extension

holy crap, that's a cool little utility!

[KDLarsen]

71. It sure is..

.. I use it all the time :D

[Bethany Rockafella]

72. I used bugmenot.com and guess what email and password it gave me?

email: [e-mail]
password: drunkdriver

ROTFL!!

[AZCat]

17. You shouldn't have to sign in...

I went straight to the column from google, and I don't have an account with them.

Just in case:
Yes, the woman regretted her action.

The columnist pointed out the wrongness of her email with this:
"that line, of course, assumed that the clerks were not Americans."

The columnist talked to a woman from the Fort Worth's Community Relations Department who was not happy about the avenue this complaint took. Her take:
"We need to see what we can do from a community relations standpoint to make sure that tensions don't escalate," Ruiz-Boling said. If necessary, the Fort Worth Human Relations Commission will convene a hearing.

"We have a forum and a place to vent these kind of concerns," she said.

That place is not e-mail or the Internet.
</snip>

[neweurope]

18. Thanks both of you :)

------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[LiberalFighter]

76. Substitute dfw with fortwayne

It will take you directly to the story

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[neweurope]

12. Propaganda... evil to not listen to the clerk's story.

"It is not fair that these people come into our country and enjoy the freedoms that my brother and so many others have fought for. They do not respect our service men and women who have died for them to be able to be here. They do not respect our country, and personally I think they need to go back to where they came from."

These people. They. Spewing hatred and ignorance. "The freedoms that my brother and so many others have fought for" makes me want to puke... We see every day how they are fighting for BushCo's "freedom". Like in Fallujah.

-----------------------

Remember Fallujah!

Bush to The Hague!

[5thGenDemocrat]

19. Well, I served this country in the Army (1974-76)

And that little redneck is cordially invited to kiss my ass.
John
To follow her logic, maybe we should turn this place back over to the Native Americans and we can ALL go back where we "came from." Still got some room left over there in Europe for me?

[neweurope]

22. It's getting a little crowded but where there's room for four there's

room for five - come on over

:hi:

-----------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague

[The Stranger]

49. The racist, bigoted, xenophobic attacks are coming dozens per day.

I'll bet Bush and the Neocon/PNAC cabal are quietly grinning and nodding.

[aikido15]

93. Must be an evangelical undercurrent here...

Just has that smell to it, ya know?

[genieroze]

52. I think they need to go back to where they came from.?

They can't go back * destroyed where they came from bi+ch. She's talking out of her butt.

[EC]

15. How many people do you know would just out of the blue

ask if you were a Marine? Or did this clerk ask everyone that? This is bullshit...What was the nationality of the clerk? Did the Marine say something disparaging to him? I can bet there is more to this...

[MADem]

21. I'll bet he had a high and tight

I can spot a jarhead at a hundred paces. It ain't rocket science!

And the USMC tee shirt was probably a good clue in the event the clerk missed the unique haircut....

[ladjf]

27. Something's fishy about this story.

[tblue37]

96. The story says

he was wearing a USMC T-shirt.

[Behind the Aegis]

20. attack of the bigots

We shall see more of things like this...mark my words! Bookmark this thread! There is an undercurrent that is becoming more outstanding about hate toward "those people." The war is not going the way we were promised. Many of OUR people are dying and this is the fault of "those people." Why can't they just praise Jesus that they are free?! :eyes: The ONLY mandate this country has been given is to HATE THOSE DIFFERENT FROM YOU.

If the clerk refused service because the man was a marine, well, that is not very nice...but I have been to several places where the sign reads..."we can refuse service for any reason." They (right-wingers) don't have a problem when that motto applies to gays or (add group here)!

[montana_hazeleyes]

25. Dear Lord

I read this to say "Store Fires Employee Who Refused To Service Marine."

[genieroze]

54. Maybe a marine serviced one of the clerks relatives at Abu Ghraib. n/t

[ladjf]

26. The fact that the shunned customer was a Marine was irrelevant.

If the clerk did, in fact, fail to serve him, the he should have been fired. The Marine had no more right to be served than anyone else. However, had he not been a Marine, or something that people felt strongly about, we'd never have heard about this.

On the other hand, if our military continues to support Bush who sends them to do his nefarious bidding around the world, they are going to have to be able to deal with the fact that many Americans don't approve of Bush's adventures and as as result, might try to "take it out" on veterans.

[fob]

66. There are signs in pretty much every store I've gone into lately

that read; "We reserve the right to refuse service". So if they have similar disclaimers the clerk should NOT have been fired and should not have needed to give a reason, just pointing at the sign would be enough. Now that said, I don't suppose that would be a good business practice either.

[NCN007]

68. Would it be relevant

if the clerk refused service to a Mexican? How about a homosexual?

[ladjf]

100. Not at all. My point was that the issue centers around

everyones right to service, unless that display some type of behavior that the establishment has clearly defined as unacceptable, i.e. no shirt in a restaurant.

[NNN0LHI]

28. Couldn't get served in Texas, eh? Wonder if this Marine was black? n/t

[Clark2008]

29. Yeah... right.

I'm guessing there is more to this story than this.

The man - "of Middle Eastern descent" - probably wasn't even Middle Eastern. But, even if was, I'm guessing there was more to the exchange.

Methinks we need to write NBC5 and ask if they've talked to the employee and find out what the young Lance Corporal said to him FIRST. My ex is Middle Eastern and refused to serve a customer during the first Gulf War after he called him a "sand nigger." The regional manager forced my husband to serve him and so, my ex walked over the pizza dough before making the pizza. Hope the customer liked the added crunch.

[Thtwudbeme]

30. As a former bartender, I have to wonder if

this guy tried to use a military ID to buy either cigarettes or alcohol.

Military ID's are NOT permissable forms of ID in NC, or at least they did not used to be-- On edit: I just looked at the state alcohol law website, and military ID's are OK to use now. So much for that theory.

I seriously doubt that the clerk gave a rat's ass which division this guy was in--more likely was looking for an age--

[NCN007]

69. but why did he refuse service?

even if the marine had joined on his 17th birthday he wouldn't have been able to make it through boot camp, school for his MOS, and a tour in the sandbox before he turned 18.

[Thtwudbeme]

79. I was wrong; Military ID's are accepted now

But, alcohol is 21 in all states now, and without the proper ID, clerks, and bartenders don't give a rat's ass if you are in the military or not-

Back in the day, military ID's were not acceptable forms of ID.

Stephanie

[NCN007]

83. but he was buying tobacco

and if you are old enough to kill and die for your country, you're old enough to have a beer

[Cooley Hurd]

99. Nope... not legally...

...and you can thank Ronald Reagan for the 21 yr old minimum drinking age state laws. He blackmailed the states with federal highway funds - if they didn't raise the minimum age, they wouldn't get their funds. He also tried to do the same thing with the 55 mph speed limits, as well (but failed)...

[NCN007]

102. tennessee was the first state to raise the drinking age to 21

but they left a provision that anyone with the green ID card could still buy no matter their age...check out the drinking age poll in the drugs and alcohol forum

[BBradley]

31. I've read the title of this thread atleast 20 times

Every damned time I read it it looks like: "Store fires employee who refused to service marine"

It's too damned late.

Oh and I guess so I don't completely drag to thread down, something doesn't seem completely right about the story. I like the store owner though, it was just a misunderstanding... but we fired the bastard anyway.

[One_Life_To_Give]

32. I never appreciated crap from the customers but

a certain amount comes with working in the service sector. Every employee and buisness owner has choices. The former to work there or not the later to do buisness with these people or not.

[Darth_Kitten]

33. I wanted to send an email to Heather....

but lo and behold! her email address is toast. :shrug:

Power of the Internet. :eyes:

[sniffa]

34. i smeLL buLLshit

the onLy missing detaiL is the cLerk spitting on him.

[Zynx]

36. Uh, do your job or lose your job?

*rolls eyes*

What the hell did the clerk think would happen?

[livinginphotographs]

37. The marine's sister is a racist.

That seems to be the eggshells that this news story is tip-toeing around.

"...need to go back to where they came from..."

Some Native American groups need to email her and tell her the exact same thing.

[Redstone]

38. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit

I guarantee we'll find out in the end that this never happened. Just another tempest-in-a-teacup fake "controversy" like the "Happy Holidays" nonsense a month ago.

Redstone

[AmandaRuth]

39. oh wow heather you got someone fired from a min wage clerk job

big effing deal, i am sure he walked right down the street and got a min wage retail clerk job at blockbuster, or walmart or target or petco or rite aid or 7-11. whatever.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[noshenanigans]

41. Ping!

Just seems odd and disconcerting that neither of the articles here (although the one from the Star-Telegraph is of much better quality than the NBC5 one) even bothered to talk to this mysterious clerk. Does he have a name? Anything? Am I expected to just take it at face value that what this guy told his sister is the way things happened? This man just doesn't exist, he isn't real, he doesn't matter because he's "Middle Eastern".

Man, I'm calling bullshit on this. I'm not saying the guy didn't deserve to be fired if he wasn't doing his job, but the response to it is representative of some scary attitudes.

[Horse with no Name]

53. OR better yet

Nobody has talked to the marine in question unless I have missed it. Star Telegram article said that he didn't return their calls.
The two principals--Marine and Store Clerk--yet no word from either on this subject. Only the rantings of a stupid sister.
And those 4 from CBS were fired why?lol.
That sends my bullshit alarm off.

[stanwyck]

42. journalism needs to be renamed

as what we've been seeing the past few years is not remotely journalism. We're seeing, literally, infommercials on the evening news (healthcare ads masquerading as news paid for with our tax money), Armstrong Williams being paid, again with our tax money, to flog Bushian policy on his rightwing talk show, (and, how many others?), and career liars fueled by oil money to bring down Democratic candidates who are given unlimited air time and treated as unimpeachable sources.

[Horse with no Name]

47. This is total BS

We do NOT know the entire story because the reporter did not question the store clerk and for all we know it is total bullshit. You cannot take ONE side of a story and create a set of events and remain a legitimate story. If this customer was a skinhead and not a US Marine--nobody would give a rats ass that he got his Skoal or not. And yes...if the clerk refused to serve ANYONE for any reason of discrimination, they should have been fired.
But is it possible that the clerk asked the man for ID(in Texas you have to be 18) and he didn't have it with him and the clerk refused service on that basis and not because he was a Marine? At which point he may have told the clerk he was a Marine--and the clerk without absolute proof had no way of knowing and just walked away from the counter to avoid a confrontation? We will never know because this story is simply one-sided and now the author is wishing she didn't write it--perhaps she doesn't want the entire truth to come out and make her look stupid?
I guarantee this story is bogus to some degree.
Only time will tell.

[VegasWolf]

48. Want to bet the marine said something nasty about the middle-east

employee.

[radric]

50. The reverse could be true too you know..

but as it is no one knows for sure...

[genieroze]

56. Well I seen her response in her e-mail and she seems like a racist

to me, you have to wonder if her brother isn't the same way. Maybe he told the clerk to get out of his country.

[DrWeird]

64. You're right, we don't know.

There could be a wave of racist Arab-looking convenience store clerks running around persecuting marines.

:eyes:

[Susang]

58. Well, his sister sure did in her email about the situation

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/4071950/detail.html

[HuckleB]

55. OK. Something's not quite right.

I mean, they're going to bother asking this out of the blue?

That doesn't make sense. Why is the media so stupid? They don't even ask basic questions, like "Why is the E-mail you sent so racist and anti-American?"

[Bridget Burke]

60. The marine was wearing a USMC t-shirt.

And he was trying to buy a tin of Skoal tobacco. (This latter detail from a story now in the Google cache).

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:LL6LKte2YnAJ:www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/columnists/10598181.htm+fort+worth+marine+%22convenience+store%22&hl=en

I'll bet the clerk had the nerve to ask for ID--as required by law. Then it got ugly.

And the sister who started the story is quite a piece of work.

[Walt Starr]

63. Seems plausible to me

He asked for ID and the Marine got pissed off.

:shrug:

Coulda happened that way just as easily as the way described by the sister.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

73. No, easier. The sister's story doesn't make sense.

But it tittilates RW bigotry so it MUST be true!

[Susang]

57. Did anyone follow the link to the original email that started it all?

Here's the email, since I don't believe this comes under copywrite protection:

Subject: Marine refused service at local store

Thought I would pass this along.

On December 19th, 2004, my brother Jason F. Young Lance Corporal in the United States Marines was refused service at a convenience store named One Stop Grocery and Grill at 2001 8th Ave. in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

He was refused service because he is a Marine.

He went in to the store and asked the clerk (a man of middle eastern descent) for a can of tobacco, at which point the clerk asked him if he was in the military. (He had on a USMC shirt) After my brother replied, "yes sir" the man said nothing to him and looked at the other middle eastern man in the back of the store. Then both men proceeded to go in to the storeroom and did not come out. My brother yelled back to them a time or two and they did not respond.

Jason waited a few minutes and finally left the store.

I am very proud of the way that my brother reacted to the situation. I can honestly say if it had been me I would have cleared their counter and taken my can of tobacco. It is not fair that these people come into our country and enjoy the freedoms that my brother and so many others have fought for. They do not respect our service men and women who have died for them to be able to be here. They do not respect our country, and personally I think they need to go back to where they came from.

My main point in writing this is to get the word out about this particular store and discourage people from shopping there. If they can't respect or even sell to the people that are responsible for the rights they have, then they don't deserve to be in business.

Please email this to everyone you know to discourage them from shopping at this store.

Heather M. Dowell

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/4071950/detail.html

[Zhade]

62. I'm starting to wonder if this racist bitch even HAS a brother.

NT!

[ashmanonar]

86. i just love

how she has the pc-ness to call this person a "person of middle eastern descent" but then procedes to talk about them as though they're people from another planet..."They...They....they need to go back to where they came from..."

the RW bigotry machine at work...

and yes, this sets off my bs meter too...

[anotherginger]

59. snopes says it's true

http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/refused.asp

[LostinVA]

61. All Snopes is saying

Is that the email is true and the employee's termination is true. Barbara isn't saying the original incident happened like Dowell said. Also, Barbara takes a swipe at the RWers protesting at the store.

[blondeatlast]

65. Gotta love "cut through the known BS" Babs.

While it is not clear if the incident described in the e-mail was witnessed by others (and thus could be substantiated by those other than the participants), it is also clear no one involved is disputing the account. Munirah Kabani, owner of the One Stop Grocery and Grill, terminated the employee in question when news of the incident reached him. "When we heard about this thing last week, we fired the guy that minute, but we apologized to the mom and everybody," he said.

To our puzzlement, despite the days-earlier firing and apology to the family, protests continued at the store, an 11 January news report claiming "The demonstration brought a sense of resolution to family members."

Thank God (or whomever your spiritual divinity or lack thereof is) for Snopes, without whom BWS would surely have reigned supreme.

She don't spin it, she just kicks it where it needs kicked and leaves the rest to us.

:toast:

Edit: damn HTML tags!

[Bethany Rockafella]

70. Let's get the clerk side of the story.

Any DUer in Fort Worth to investigate?

[earth mom]

77. More Propaganda...time to hurl

no doubt about it. :puke: And even if it's so, they call this news? Who gives a damn? Poor baby marine.

How about the media focusing on the REAL ISSUES like the election fraud, * authorizing torture, pundits getting paid by * to spew right wing propoganda, etc., etc. :eyes:

[radric]

78. Hmm..

"And even if it's so, they call this news? Who gives a damn?"

I guess since it seems that the story was true after all and we can't call her a racist bitch or crucify her brother the Marine it's not newsworthy anymore.

[earth mom]

80. People get dissed all the time

and I don't see each and every story on the news. If you don't know that the MSM is biased by now, and that it reports frivolous trumped up "news" and ignores important crucial information from getting out to the public, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe that you're on the wrong message board.

[Redstone]

81. I hope I misunderstood your comment

"I guess since it seems that the story was true after all and we can't call her a racist bitch or crucify her brother the Marine it's not newsworthy anymore."

Even if the story is true, that doesn't mean she's not a racist bitch.

Does it?

Redstone

[rpannier]

90. Agreed

Sound point.

[proud2BlibKansan]

82. Regardless of whether the story is true or not

we most definitely CAN call her a racist bitch based on her email:

"It is not fair that these people come into our country and enjoy the freedoms that my brother and so many others have fought for. They do not respect our service men and women who have died for them to be able to be here. They do not respect our country, and personally I think they need to go back to where they came from."

[LostinVA]

84. We Don't know if the story IS true

Until we hear all sides, we probably still wouldn't know. But, I'm betting there was a "raghead"-type comment thrown in somewhere.

[proud2BlibKansan]

85. Oh, I agree

I can't imagine the clerk just walking away for no reason.

[rpannier]

89. To be honest....I give a damn

If he was refused service for having been a marine then I'd have fired the clerk too. Just as I would have if he had refused service to a teacher, a police officer, someone who is unemployed, whatever. What the clerk did was wrong.

[daleo]

88. I agree, there is more to the story

The part that doesn't seem to hold together (especially) is when the first clerk is reported to look at the second one, and they both walk away. That doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would happen in a retail store. There has to be more. The fact that the sister now regrets starting the email cascade tells me that she or he left out some important details.

[harpboy_ak]

98. Or maybe lack of language skills?

"The part that doesn't seem to hold together (especially) is when the first clerk is reported to look at the second one, and they both walk away."

Perhaps both employees had limited English skills? Perhaps the jarhead had some kind of attitude when he noticed that the store was run by "middle easterns"?

[Bridget Burke]

103. Perhaps the clerks wanted to avoid a beating....

For having the temerity to request ID from the marine who wanted to buy Skoal.