Katie LinkTalk about bah humbug. A Wal-Mart in Ohio is getting major flak after ruining a man's annual holiday tradition.
John Harkness, a 69-year-old Marine Corps veteran, has spent the past 14 holiday seasons collecting donations for Toys for Tots inside his local Wal-Mart in Medina. This year, "corporate policy" threw a wrench in his plans.
"They said you have to stay outside, you can't come in the store. We weren't allowed to stay between the two sets of doors, we had to be outside," Harkness told Newsy's partners at WEWS.
A shopper snapped a picture of Harkness, dressed in his uniform and standing outside, and posted it to social media. She captioned it, "He can bleed and die but not stand inside!" The picture has been shared on Facebook thousands of times.
"It takes two seconds to do the right thing. Especially when it's cold and rainy and it's the holiday season, you can put them in there," shopper Mary Murdock said. (Video via WOIO)
But according to the store's new manager, she can't. It's the same reason Red Kettle bell ringers have to set up outside, and Girl Scouts put a certain distance between their cookie stands and the store's front doors.
Corporate policies like this aren't totally out of the ordinary. Target bans all third-party solicitations at its stores as well. But it seems like this local Wal-Mart is still trying to cover its tracks.
The Medina Wal-Mart issued a statement in response to the uproar. It reads in part, "If a Marine or anyone was treated with disrespect, that is unacceptable and we are looking into this matter further to get the facts."
So maybe the store's new manager, or the corporate giant as a whole, can't be called a Scrooge after all.
As Harkness puts it, "This is for the kids. It's not about us. It's all about the kids."
This video includes images from Getty Images.
