M&S apology over Muslim alcohol refusal
wine for sale in M&S

Marks & Spencer has apologised after a Muslim member of staff refused to serve a customer trying to buy alcohol.

The retailer said it usually tried to assign "suitable roles" to staff who could not handle certain items because of their religious beliefs.

It said this policy had not been followed in a case highlighted by the Telegraph over the weekend.

Consuming alcohol is forbidden in Islam, and some Muslims refuse to handle it at all.

An unnamed customer told the newspaper they had tried to buy a bottle of champagne in an M&S store, but the member of staff "was very apologetic but said she could not serve me" and asked the customer to use another till.

A spokesperson for M&S said: "Where we have an employee whose religious beliefs restrict food or drink they can handle, we work closely with our member of staff to place them in suitable role, such as in our clothing department or bakery in foods.

'Beyond common sense'
"As a secular business we have an inclusive policy that welcomes all religious beliefs, whether across our customer or employee base... We apologise that this policy was not followed in the case reported."

Other retailers said they had similar policies, applied on a case-by-case basis, that allow Muslims to avoid handling alcohol or pork, and allow similar exceptions for other religions.

But speaking to Radio 5 live's On The Money programme on Sunday, Andy Street, managing director of John Lewis, said the company did not have a similar policy, and questioned whether members of staff should have the right to refuse to serve customers.

"This is taking it one stage beyond common sense," he told the programme.

"We certainly have never had any issue with our teams... we've not even had to have a policy on this. I would hope [members of staff] would understand that in their job this was probably going to be required."

This report shows there is no reciprocal tolerance towards Christians:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... trars.html
It is very strange how political correctly enforced tolerance results in tolerance being a one-way affair.

Just more of the same - one rule for them and another for us.

I think the offer of re-deployment to other duties hopefully bog cleaner should sent out a suitable message.

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Lets be careful out there !

Maybe not! There could be alcohol in some of the cleaning products

Can you imagine moving this sensitive member of staff to the bakery, only to find the first customer wants half a dozen sausage rolls

Not much of a news story though is it? Indeed, it's a bit of a fuss over nothing. But after saying that, I wouldn't want to be moved from my regular spot in the clothing area to cover a HR cock up in the wines and spirits dept

Its us suckers who were brought with," when in Rome do as the Romans do " its a total lack of respect, that we have to bend over backwards, well maybe its time we acted as Hebrews and Gentiles had nothing to do with Jews and bar M&S.

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Its not always the biggest and the bestest, its them that make the least mistakes.

You have let them turn the country upside down, cosmetics! cant work there, alcohol, nail polish/remover, deodorants, chemists is a no go, dry cleaners no go, best go home we will send you a benefits check in the mail, it's nuts.

It used to be an apple a day that kept the doctor at bay....now its a bacon sarnie.

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When a crash seems inevitable, try to hit the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity as slowly and gently as possible.

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Lets be careful out there !