A Southern California woman says she was stunned when a grocery store security guard told her to leave the parking lot minutes after she bought more than $100 in groceries. Reddit user Hydratedstoner said she had just left the gym and was eating some of her freshly purchased rotisserie chicken in her car when security approached her.
Hydratedstoner said she had purchased more than $100 worth of groceries after leaving the gym and, having not eaten all day, decided to eat some of the rotisserie chicken in her car before driving home. “Two minutes into my late lunch, I get a harsh knock on my window from store security telling me to move along,” she recalled, frustrated by his alleged aggressive behavior. OP says she even parked farther from the entrance to avoid taking up other customers’ spots, but that didn’t stop the guard from approaching her for staying two minutes too long.
California Woman Says She May Change Grocery Stores After Encounter
“It sounds ridiculous but I genuinely think I’m changing grocery stores,” Hydratedstoner wrote angrily, and plenty of people didn’t blame her. “These guys will let folks walk out of the store with a hundred dollars in merchandise because they can’t actually do anything about theft in the moment. But will tell a paying customer to leave,” remarked a commenter. “Can’t a person just sit in their car and eat chicken? Apparently not,” chimed in a second user.
“What type of power trip would you have to be on to do this to someone?” questioned a third. “What was the crime, eating a succulent chicken meal?” memed a fourth. The discussion took an uncomfortable turn when several commenters brought the woman’s race into the conversation. Hydratedstoner responded that she is a “multi-racial woman” but questioned why her race was relevant to the encounter. “Why do we need to drag race into it?” she asked.
Some commenters pointed to California law restricting how quickly vehicles can be towed from certain privately owned parking lots open to the public. State law generally prevents towing within the first hour, with several exceptions. However, that rule concerns towing and does not establish that a customer has the right to remain on private property after being asked to leave.
Whatever prompted the security guard to approach her, Hydratedstoner said the brief encounter was enough to make her reconsider where she buys her groceries. After spending more than $100 inside, she apparently wasn’t expecting eating a few bites of rotisserie chicken in her parked car to become the most memorable part of the shopping trip.
