Kicked out for being in wheelchair
An Auckland man has laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission after he was kicked out of a shop for being in a wheelchair.
Imtiaz Aziz was shopping for T-shirts in O¯ ta¯huhu, south Auckland, with his sister on Tuesday when he went into Bes Mart.
Aziz said the shop owner walked over to him and started pointing towards the door.
‘‘He came closer to me and he said ‘Get out, get out, get out’. I said ‘Why? Why should I get out? I am buying something from here’.’’
Others working in the shop also approached Aziz, saying the store was too small for his wheelchair to travel through, he said.
‘‘Everyone in the shop just started looking at me like I was stealing something from there.
‘‘I have been in that shop before and nothing happened. The shop is not small, it is big and my wheelchair is not huge, it can fit easily inside.’’
Aziz said he had no choice but to leave, but he told the owner kicking him out was wrong.
‘‘I felt sad and I felt really embarrassed because everyone was looking at me,’’ he said.
‘‘It made me feel down and I was making an attempt to go out in a wheelchair and do my normal shopping.’’
On Wednesday, the shop owners said, through another staff member who translated, they had asked Aziz to leave because his wheelchair was ‘‘too big’’ for their store.
Another wheelchair user had stolen from their shop recently and the female shop owner now ‘‘doesn’t want those people to come’’, they said.
‘‘There’s always someone pushing a wheelchair who comes here to steal,’’ the female shop owner said.
Aziz’s wheelchair wheels could not fit down the aisles, which had items out for purchase in them, they said.
Staff were unable to move the items out of the way because they did not have the space and were ‘‘too busy’’.
In a follow-up phone call with a Mandarin-speaking reporter, the male shop owner said he had not been rude to Aziz, and had asked politely for him to leave.
Aziz had laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, and said he wanted a written apology from the shop owner.
A commission spokeswoman said there was a presumption that a provider of goods and services would take reasonable measures to accommodate disability under the Human Rights Act 1993.
The spokeswoman said she could not comment on the complaint because the commission’s dispute resolution service was confidential.