Bookseller charges to enter store

Arude bookseller has come under fire for charging his customers to enter his store.

The store’s owner, Stephen Bloom, has been branded the “bookseller from hell” by visitors to his Bloomindales store in Hawes in North Yorkshire, northeast England.

The Times newspaper reports that a complaint, submitted to Hawes Parish Council, claims that one customer declined to pay and was branded a “pain in the arse”, while another was thrown out of the shop for spending five minutes browsing.

More than 20 complaints have been made about Bloom in the past four years, and his conduct had been discussed by parish councillors five times since 2003.

In Bloom’s defence, he explained: “I’m not really a people person” and claimed that he had become victim to an “aggressive and vindictive witch hunt”.

He added: “The 50p charge is me making sure they are serious about coming into my shop to buy something, not just standing for 10 minutes reading a book to pass the time as some people