Liz Heidhues 8.8.2020
I will never shop at Ace Hardware, 152 Clement Street, San Francisco AGAIN!
I have been shopping there for years. On August 7, I had to listen to an elderly Chinese customer being abused by a young male employee. The employee kept shouting “GET THE F*** OUT OF MY STORE!” while physically confronting the somewhat confused elderly shopper.
The shopper’s mask had slipped from his face down around his neck. I heard the expletive-laced language two aisles away. I watched as I stood in line to pay. Finally, I spoke up and told the employee that I objected to listening to the F*** word over and over while I was shopping.
Then a very tall male employee came rushing over to chew me out for objecting to watching a fellow shopper being mistreated. BOTH male employees ganged up on me and told me I could shop somewhere else. They told me that they could say whatever they wanted to customers because their Ace Hardware was private property.
They told me to shop with my feet and leave. They said “WE DON’T WANNA GET COVID-19! WE DON’T SELL VENTILATORS HERE!!”
I perceived their verbal abuse of this Chinese man shopping in their store related to the American people calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.” I am elderly, too. I was shaken by the hostility shown by the Ace Hardware staff toward a Chinese shopper.
Lee's Perspective 