Woolworths slammed by shoppers over uncompromising sign posted at the front of a supermarket: ‘No way in hell’
Woolworths has sparked heated debate after it posted a sign banning students from taking their school bags into any of its stores.
One customer took a photo of the sign at the entrance gate and uploaded the image to Reddit on Sunday, but did not specify the location.
The sign – printed in capital letters on a laminated sheet of bright orange paper – advised students not to enter the store with their bags between 7am and 5pm.
“Leave school bags at the entrance to the shops,” the sign said.
Shoppers are outraged by a sign (pictured) placed at the gate of a Woolworths store telling schoolchildren to leave their bags outside
The social media post was flooded with hundreds of comments from shoppers.
“When they require bags to be left outside they take 100 percent responsibility for it,” one customer wrote.
‘My local organization is trying to enforce this, but they can’t do anything. Under no circumstances does my son leave his bag with an expensive laptop unattended at the door,” wrote another customer.
‘Real. They might as well put up a sign that says ‘Free MacBook Air staging area,'” a third added.
Others recalled that other supermarkets regularly placed similar signs outside their stores ‘decades ago’ (stock image)
Others recalled that other supermarkets had once regularly placed similar signs outside their stores.
“When I was in school, a lot of stores had signs like this, and that was decades ago. But we never had anything valuable in our bags,” one person said.
‘My local colleague used to do this when I was in school. We just left our bags in a pile outside but it was visible from the checkout so no one tried anything,” someone else wrote.
Some said the act of putting up the sign essentially indicated that students would steal items from the stores.
“Not all students are thieves, so this is just collective punishment for the few who are,” said one.
Woolworths has since confirmed that students will be allowed to enter the stores with their school bags.
The supermarket giant was previously forced to clarify the same issue when a Year 11 student had her bag stolen outside a Woolworths store in Bendigo in regional Victoria in 2019.
A Woolworths spokesperson confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that there has been no change to the policy allowing school bags to be brought into stores.
“The sign has been removed from the store,” the spokesperson said.