myrealityisbetter
1/5
I tried calling corporate in Miami to make this complaint instead of publicly posting. Someone took my name and number after I told the story, saying Nancy would call me back, but no one has. After seeing other reviews with similar complaints of feeling targeted I hope someone at the top sees this and actually addresses the customer service problem at this location. Yesterday I was shopping at Breeza on St Pete Beach. An employee let me try on a few items. I liked a couple so picked out several other similar items to try on. While walking around with a handful of clothes another employee stopped me and said I canāt try the clothes on because I came from the beach, are wet and wearing sunblock. I said you can feel my clothes, Iām dry and havenāt been in the water for hours. It was the pool not the beach. And the sunblock was several hours old. You can still see it on me because Iām dark skinned. We went back and forth because she kept insisting I canāt try clothes on with sunblock. I showed her the black items I had already tried on that had no stains on them. She kept insisting and was talking fairly loudly while walking away, which hurt my feelings and made me feel embarrassed. I wanted to say more, but I donāt like confrontation so I put the clothes down and left. I tried to address this discreetly by calling corporate today, but since no one called me back, Iām dropping this here and moving on. This store cannot expect to apply a policy like that fairly without targeting dark skinned people. Sunblock isnāt visible on my friends with very white pale skin. So how are you going to have a policy of stopping people from trying on clothes when you can see the sunblock, but not stop those if you canāt? You have to either not let people try the clothes on at all or let everyone try them on, otherwise youāre opening yourself up for a discrimination lawsuit. I donāt feel like it was a racial thing. The first and second employees were also ethnic women, like myself. The first that let me try on the clothes was dark skinned like me. The second was fair skinned. I donāt think she meant it to come across racist because my mom is fair skinned and often says things that indicate she doesnāt understand the experiences of dark skinned women. But the fact that the dark skinned woman allowed me to try on clothes, whereas the light skinned woman did not, just made me feel bad. I donāt think Iām being overly sensitive in this situation. I understand a store not wanting their clothes to be stained with white, but you cannot only target those you can visibly see sunblock on. You are going to end up letting fair skinned people try on clothes and stop people with a lot of pigment. Iāve been shopping at this location on and off for 30 years, since it was called Wings. Iāve spent a lot of money there and planned on dropping at least $100 last night. Obviously I will never go there again, which makes me sad because itās always been nostalgic for me. I grew up on the beach so have spent many many days shopping for beachwear after a pool day or beach day, at many different stores. This has never happened to me anywhere else. A couple times I have been to a store that had signs up that you canāt try on clothes at the store, but if there are signs then it clearly applies to everyone, so thatās fair. This store location is not treating customers fairly.
