Man threatened with one-year ban after buying dozens of Christmas bauble trolleys from garden shop

A man was made to empty his car after buying thousands of Christmas baubles after being threatened by the store owner that he would not be allowed to shop in any of his stores for a year.

A man was made to empty his car after buying thousands of Christmas baubles. Archive photo

Ruben Robeyns, the owner of a temporary bar-restaurant set up for the holidays located in the center of the city of Hasselt, Belgium, had a funny incident in a store in the area, writes 7sur7.be.

The man was looking for about 5,000 Christmas balls to finish an arch that adorns one of the entrances of his place. “We started working on it and quickly realized that we needed a lot more globes than we had anticipated“, he explains.

“We wanted to create a really spectacular arcade, but our stock would never have been enough”he added, stating that one of his employees found a very good deal in a garden store about half an hour away in Hasselt, in Opglabbeek: tubes of 24 bulbs at a very low price. “We prioritize local purchases as much as possible, so that was the ideal,” said the man.

“The store offered twenty different colors. We selected ten that matched our concept. That way we had enough options for the arcade without running out of stock with just one color. Emptying the store was out of the question”he argues.

“It wasn't a friendly request, it was an order.”

Ruben Robeyns then went to the garden shop with some of his team. “We asked them if we could buy a pallet, but they immediately refused. So we simply filled the carts. We ended up with seventeen carts. The store manager approached my employee and told him that he could not take the last cart and that he had to leave immediately. It was not a friendly request, but an order.”

“He even asked us to return the carts that we had already paid for and loaded into the car. I refused. They were already paid. It's not like we emptied the store: there were still windows full of Christmas baubles. We even have photos to prove it“, said the owner of the restaurant.

The story could have ended here. Only a few days later, Ruben received a registered letter from the garden store. “According to this letter, aI got an official warning: if we did it again, we'd be banned from all their stores for a year. Anyone ignoring this ban would also have been considered a “trespasser”, according to the garden shop. At first, I thought it was a misunderstanding, but in fact it was something very serious, said the owner of the restaurant”.

Ruben then wrote back to the administrators of the garden center to explain his actions, inviting them to come and see the famous archway. “What bothered me the most was the tone they used when they spoke to us: they were unnecessarily threatening“, he added

Eventually, the company admitted its mistake and apologized for the tone it used towards its customer.