Dollarama

Please accept this letter as our formal complaint related to disrespectful and unwelcoming conduct from Dollarama employees at the Ontario St., Beamsville, Ontario location.

On Tuesday, November 3rd my 16-year-old son entered the store as he has been since Covid restrictions began. On this particular day, he was asked if he had a mask and when he answered and said that I have asthma, the employee just grunted, shrugged her shoulders at him, and turned away. My 18-year-old daughter was with him at the time and she was witness to it. Later, my son approached the counter to purchase his items, and the same employee who "greeted him" in the store was behind the counter. When he went to pay for his items, he began to hand his money to her and she very abruptly replied with, "put it on the counter!". As she clearly did not want to touch him without him wearing a mask. He did as he was told, and as she was counting it, she snottily replied, "I love change". He paid for his items and then left. My daughter, who was wearing a mask, a few minutes later also brought her items to pay at the counter and nothing was said to her when she paid with cash by the same cashier. She actually took the money right from her hand and didn't say a thing. As disturbing as this is, it continues.

When he arrived at home and explained what happened, my wife went back to the store to hopefully gain an apology for our son. At the time, the employee had gone home and the Assistant Manager, Brittany, explained that she would inform her Manager, Shelly, of the incident, call back and let us know how this would be rectified. When she didn't call back after 4 days, my wife went back to the store. She again was met with the Assistant Manager who first of all apologized for not calling back, but then explained that the cashier was not present and that we could come back on Monday, November 9th between 12:00 pm and 6:00pm with our son to finalize everything and get a formal apology. She assured us that her Manager, herself, and the cashier would be present. On Monday, my wife again went back to the store with our son, and the Assistant Manager said that nothing could be done because the Manager was not there and the cashier didn't feel comfortable apologizing in the store as she wanted to go in a back room elsewhere. In addition, because there had to be a third party present we weren't able to do this because there wouldn't have been anyone at the cash. My wife did say that this was very disappointing and unacceptable and finally had to just leave the store.

Since this incident happened my wife and I have had time to review your website and other related information with regards to how Dollarama wants to engage with their customers. We are very concerned with your staff's lack of empathy for those people who have a health condition and cannot wear a mask and are constantly harassed because of this. It certainly appears that there is a hypocritical message that Dollarama is sending through their website by stating that, "Dollarama is committed to high standards of social, environmental and ethical behaviour." This is your high standard?

One other note as stated on your website reads, "As always, let's continue to be kind and thoughtful towards one another as we navigate this new normal, to ensure everyone's health and wellbeing (taken from"Message to Customers: Covid-19 Update). I can assure you that he didn't feel this and even felt harassed and belittled.
In addition to the above, we have also read your Code of Ethics that all employees are to acknowledge and it would certainly appear that this store is not adhering to your guidelines of maintaining integrity, objectivity, and impartiality of Dollarama that your President, and CEO, Neil Rossy endorses.

And finally, from your ESG Report, dated June 2019, "a key component of talent development is performance assessment….. To encourage improvement, assess potential, and help train each employee to take on increasing responsibilities." is this how your management staff are to conduct themselves and then have a situation build to the point that becomes confrontational in front of others?

Given the aforementioned, we would like to ensure that this type of behaviour does not continue so that others do not go through this type of experience again.

We can be reached at [protected] should you need to discuss further.

Lee and Lisa Ripenburg