Man takes Coles to court for refusing to pack his “dirty and wrinkled” grocery bags
A Sydney man has taken Coles to court for refusing to pack his grocery bags.
Lance Tyrell has shopped at his local Coles in Greenacre, in Sydney’s southwest, for many years, but ended up going head-to-head with staff after single-use plastic bags were phased out of supermarkets in NSW in 2018.
The 64-year-old continued to reuse the single-use bags during his trips to the grocery chain’s store despite the introduction of reusable plastic bags.
But one day, Mr Tyrell claimed to the NSW Civil Administrative Tribunal, that staff declined when asked to pack his old bags, which he said wasn’t an issue before reusables were introduced.
But Coles said they didn’t pack the bags for Mr Tyrell because they weren’t clean.
Mr Tyrell then said that staff did not let him know the bags weren’t clean.
“Some of them were just saying straight out, ‘I’m sorry’. They weren’t saying anything that they were dirty of whatever,” he said.
“They were saying ‘Sorry, you can’t use those bags, you actually have to buy our new ones’.”
Mr Tyrell claimed Coles discriminated against him due to his disability and age. My Tyrrell took his complaint before the Anti-Discrimination Board.
The board’s president noted Mr Tyrrell has “severe physical disabilities” which included tendinitis, “chronic back pain” and the need for a walking stick. The board escalated this to the tribunal after the complaint couldn’t be resolved at reconciliation.
Store manager Eliaz Housil told the tribunal in a statement Mr Tyrrell’s bags were “dirty and wrinkled up” when visiting the store in December 2018. The tribunal disregarded this as “in dispute” due to the bags provided as evidence.
However, the tribunal couldn’t uphold Mr Tyrrell’s discrimination claim.
“Mr Tyrrell did not provide any evidence, statistical or otherwise, as to the proportion of shoppers without the relevant disability who are able to comply with the alleged requirement or condition of presenting with bags other than the small grey bags compared with those who have the relevant disability,” the tribunal said.
“We are not satisfied in the absence of evidence that it could be said that a substantially higher proportion of shoppers who do not have Mr Tyrrell’s disability are able to comply with the requirement or condition that they present with a bag other than the small grey bags.”
The claim was dismissed.