More Bad Smells...

Two shops. Two different companies. Two completely different sets of staff. Unconnected, but only 2 miles apart, there is a connection. Both stores smell strongly of cannabis skunk inside.

The manager of Londis shown has been seen smoking spliffs outside the front of the shop (by me). Other retailers in the area say he is an aggressive and arrogant man...
The 'angry man's' car is the silver VW pictured above, where, I am told, he takes people to sit in the car for just a couple of minutes...

hmm..... Is the business not performing enough methinks...


The staff in the Co-operative store all denied that cannabis was used by any of them (wouldn't you?) My nose isn't infallible, but I have smelt the stuff before. Perhaps it was the fresh veg department inside the store?

Even so, I shall not identify the particular store locations any more than the photographs uploaded here as my nose could be wrong...

Bad Smells (1)

One Stop is a retail convenience business with over 500 shops and a key focus on being the best store for customers in the neighbourhood. Open 7 days a week One Stop aims to meet the needs of all its local customers. (According to its website)

What One Stop don't tell you is:

• One Stop is a subsidiary of supermarket mega-chain Tesco.
• One Stop delivers to its stores with its own lorries
• One Stop lorries carry store refuse in the same lorries that it delivers its food supplies (as shown in the two photos above)

This dual purpose for it's delivery/refuse lorries is so that the stores pay a reduced business rate to local authorities as they provide their own refuse disposal...

Surely there is some contravention of food hygiene taking place here?

Walter M Brown (Dovehouse Parade)

What can I say about a pharmacy where the staff question you about your symptoms, then in front of other customers and YOU, talk about you to each other in a non-discrete way? I had gone in to buy ACTIFED tablets for my cold. I have used them since I can remember. I recall one pharmacist telling me that Actifed tablets were used by NASA astronauts prior to take off and reentry as they completely unblocked the sinuses and this prevented any nasty phlegm related problems during that important time...

The staff at Walter M Brown Chemist, Dovehouse Parade, Olton were intrusive and indiscreet. Furthermore they were downright rude. I asked if I could be interviewed privately and had to settle with a 'quiet' end of the counter. The member of staff interviewing me was over 60, or even over 70, and deaf, so I had to keep repeating my answers in a loader voice. After I had been served and was leaving I over heard them saying (in a loud whisper) that I was the middle aged man buying a pregnancy test kit the week before (even though I wasn't) in front of six other customers!!!

Aldi ban 85 year old 'hoodie'

German owned Aldi in Sparkbrook was opened in early 1990s.

This is a personal story concerning my late uncle, who lived in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham.

He passed away in 2008, aged nearly 90, but was active right up until his death, and would daily walk down to the paper shop to buy his Daily paper, and having returned home he would scan the racing pages and then return to the bookies with his daily 22p eachway Yankee (4 horses/dogs = 6 doubles, 4 trebles and 1 roll up =11 bets @ 1p each or each way = 22 bets).

My uncle was quite a good tipster. Well good enough to keep him in Sparkbrook!

Once a week, on pension days he would, with my cousin and his wife, walk to the Aldi supermarket, in Stratford Road, Sparkbrook.

Following several incidences of shop lifting robberies, the store started to put up a hand printed sign, on their front door.

"Would all customers remove hoods"

Well one Monday morning, back in January 2006 and shortly after the sign went up, when it was a dreadfully cold and rainy day, he went into the shop, this frail little man with a walking stick, and wearing his hood, to help keep him dry and warm.

Halfway down the first aisle, he was approach by a security guard, and in pigeon English was asked to remove his hood 'like it says on the door, oldie.'

Bearing in mind that 99% of the women in there were wearing burkhas or niqabs or hijabs, and that about 10% of the men were wearing turbans and 60% were wearing an Islamic toppi and most of the rest of the men were wearing a baseball cap, my uncle said, "No."

Speaking up for him, my cousin's wife said "he's old and cold and his head is bald" (another family poet!), and pointing out that everyone else were still wearing their head gear said "why is my father in law being picked upon by Aldi?"

She further rebuked the man for calling my uncle oldie.

The security guard then said, without any further debate, that all three of them were banned for not "removing a hood and for making racist remarks about the customers there."

The allegation was flatly denied and they left without causing any scenes of disquiet.

Since that day we have as a family, all tried to avoid shopping at any Aldi store.