Grocery store supervisor suspended after altercation with customer

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This article was published 01/05/2024 (526 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Food Fare supervisor has been suspended after an incident involving an Indigenous woman who was accused of stealing.

Security footage from the Portage Avenue and Burnell Street store, which was viewed by the Free Press, shows a woman and a male employee in an altercation near the cash register on Sunday afternoon.

The worker had approached the woman and accused her of stealing two packages of hot dogs, manager Tarik Zeid said.

The footage shows the employee pulling on the woman’s bag. The woman appears to swing her fist at the employee before the staffer appears to punch her in the face.

Zeid said the supervisor, who has been suspended, approached the woman after seeing her on video surveillance allegedly steal the meat.

“Was it the right thing to do? No. But it happened,” Zeid said Wednesday.

Angela Antoine, who said she witnessed the incident, said the woman’s child was pushed into a gumball machine near the store entrance during the scuffle.

“I remember hearing that ‘smack’ noise and she just fell to the ground,” Antoine said. “I’m standing there and I’m like, ‘what the hell is happening right now?”

Zeid said he and two other employees separated the two.

Winnipeg police confirmed they are investigating the incident. No arrests had been made as of Wednesday.

Antoine gave a statement to police after the incident and drove the woman home. Antoine said her mouth was bleeding.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which provides food orders and vouchers to clients under a federal government program, announced it has severed its relationship with the grocer, but would be willing to reconcile if an apology is made.

“There has to be a lot of healing that needs to take place when our women are being offended, and when our children are watching that. That’s not acceptable,” said Grand Chief Cathy Merrick at an unrelated news conference.

Zeid says he’s willing to meet with the woman to apologize.

“Having this over our head is not a good look for us, and we don’t want to be known as the store that does this bad stuff. We try and be the store that people go to and they know they’re safe, and they can get whatever they need,” he said.

Antoine called the incident an example of racial profiling, but Zeid pushed back against the allegation, saying a large majority of his shoppers and employees, himself included, are people of colour.

Food Fare owner Munther Zeid said in a statement Wednesday the employee is from a marginalized community and would not be fired as it is not the “right course of action at this stage.”

“Instead, we view this incident as an opportunity for education, growth and repair. We are committed to providing comprehensive training and resources to enhance all employees’ understanding of conflict resolution, de-escalation techniques, and appropriate responses to challenging situations,” the statement said.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.