New York City Retailers Agree To Abide By Anti-Profiling “Customers’ Bill Of Rights”

(the idealist)

In the wake of recent incidents where shoppers claimed they were stopped and frisked at major New York City stores like Macy’s and Barneys because of racial profiling, many of those retailers have agreed to a Customers’ Bill of Rights to keep those kinds of situations from happening again.

The anti-profiling policy championed by civil-rights activists including the Rev. Al Sharpton will be put in place at stores in NYC including Barneys, Macy’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and the Gap.

Those stores have promised to post and abide by a bill of rights for shoppers drafted by the Retail Council of New York State, reports the New York Post. (See the PDF here if you can’t read the embedded version below)

“Profiling is an unacceptable practice and will not be tolerated,” the one page document reads. Any stores who have pledged to follow the bill of rights are “committed to ensuring that all shoppers, guests and employees are treated with respect and dignity and are free from unreasonable searches, profiling and discrimination of any kind.”

The stores involved will also use “internal programs to test compliance with our strict prohibition against profiling practices” and enforce the bill of rights by disciplining any employees who violate it, which could even include getting fired.

Sharpton said he hopes the signs will start going up in stores this week, and he’ll keep working with city officials including the Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and incoming Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.

“This is the beginning of a process, it’s not the conclusion of a process,” he said.

Stores agree to ‘Customers’ Bill of Rights’ after ‘shop and frisk’ fiasco [New York Post]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist