Posted on 09/30/2007 7:06:50 PM PDT by Lorianne
MUSLIM supermarket checkout staff who refuse to sell alcohol are being allowed to opt out of handling customers’ bottles and cans of drink.
Islamic workers at Sainsbury’s who object to alcohol on religious grounds are told to raise their hands when encountering any drink at their till so that a colleague can temporarily take their place or scan items for them.
Other staff have refused to work stacking shelves with wine, beer and spirits and have been found alternative roles in the company.
Sainsbury’s said this weekend it was keen to accommodate the religious beliefs of all staff but some Islamic scholars condemned the practice, saying Muslims who refused to sell alcohol were reneging on their agreements with the store.
Islam states that Muslims should not consume alcohol, but opinion is divided on whether it is permissible to be involved in the sale of it.
Mustapha, a Muslim checkout worker at the company’s store in Swiss Cottage, northwest London, interrupts his work to ensure that he does not have to sell or handle alcohol.
Each time a bottle or can of alcohol comes along the conveyor belt in front of him, Mustapha either swaps places discreetly with a neighbouring attendant or raises his hand so that another member of staff can come over and pass the offending items in front of the scanner before he resumes work.
Some of the staff delegated to handle the drink for Mustapha are themselves obviously Muslim, including women in hijab head coverings. However, a staff member at the store told a reporter that two other employees had asked to be given alternative duties after objecting to stacking drinks shelves.
Mustapha told one customer: “I can’t sell the alcohol because of my religion. It is Ramadan at the moment.”
His customers did not appear to have any objection to his polite refusal to work with alcohol. One said: “I have no issues with it at all, it really doesn’t bother me.”
However, some senior Muslims were less approving.
Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute and leader of the Muslim parliament, said: “This is some kind of overenthusiasm. One expects professional behaviour from people working in a professional capacity and this shows a lack of maturity.
“Sainsbury’s is being very good, they are trying to accommodate the wishes of their employees and we commend that. The fault lies with the employee who is exploiting and misusing their goodwill. It makes no difference if it is only happening over Ramadan.”
Ibrahim Mogra, chairman of the inter-faith committee of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said: “Muslim employees should look at the allowances within Muslim law to enable them to be better operating employees and not be seen as rather difficult to cater for.”
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s, confirming Mustapha’s stance, said: “At the application stage we ask the relevant questions regarding any issues about handling different products and where we can we will try and accommodate any requirements people have, but it depends on the needs of the particular store.”
Looks like the muzzie checker-outers have to stop handling the twinkies and cinammon buns, also.
Leni
Not me! After my items were all rung up and bagged I would ask the second clerk what was wrong--do I smell, is my breath bad, etc. Then I would say, "if you are going to employ people that will not handle certain legal items I guess I will do my shopping somewhere else while you cater to the people who think they are special employees." Then walk out.
More PC stupidity.
Why can’t these liberal idiots at least read a koran before they cave into Islamic demands?
There is no religious reason that a muzzie can’t handle booze.
They just aren’t supposed to DRINK it, and even then you’d never know it by the number of muzzies you see in strip joints oogling western strippers.
The UK is so far down the road of Islamization, I doubt it will still be called the UK in ten years. They've pc'd themselves into History's trash bin. I just hope all the nukes are destroyed before total collapse into sharia law happens.
And we all thought France had it bad...
Guess what FRiend - this is already going on now.
Recently here in Southeast Asia I I ran across a "recruitment session" being conducted by members of Hizb ut-Tahrir who used laminated copies of newspaper articles on the "progress" in the United States and Europe.
The whole thing seemed out of the twilight zone - the members were showing a laminated copy of article that about prayer rooms being constructed in a question and answer session - the members were telling people that the accommodations were being constructed at the direction of the US government who is coming to accept Islam as the true belief.
Complete details on this are going to be posted soon.
I get the feeling that media and governemnt support it. That way they can have communist like control without getting their hands dirty, the mullah mafia will do all the dirty work keeping people in line.
I seriously doubt it. There may be s few isolated incidents near the attack area, but that will be quickly stomped out by the police state. Those in other cities will continue on with the "well it didn't affect ME, so..." and go on with their everyday lives. Moonbats will blame it on Bush, or whoever is in the WH.
Raise your hands when you check my Jack Daniels through and I’ll simply walk away from the cart and the store.
This would be my solution as well. Make sure the cart and the conveyor are fully loaded - then walk away. This happens a few too many times, the store starts losing money and changes will take place.
I don’t really have a problem with this. I won’t buy anything from a store where a Muslim works.
So they are against alcohol, yet get a paycheck from a company which profits from the sale of alcohol?
So pharmacists who choose to opt out of selling birth control get fired or prosecuted, but Muslims get a pass? What ever happened to equal protection?
They’d tell them to pound sand imo.
I get the objections but why is it only the muslim/islam objections that matter now?
My husband works on Good Friday. I think it should be a holiday/day off but get why it isn’t. He can take it in place of one of the other holidays/floater. We’re accomodating them and eventually, we’ll get tired of it. Hopefully before it’s too late to make a difference. The Muslims are our special group now. If we keep allowing this, we’re gonna be screwed.
Then space them out so the co-worker has to run back 5 or 6 times. Heeheehee
Me either!
Let them do the jobs that illegal aliens won’t do. : )
Given the Islamic abhorrence of deodorant, that is probably best.
My religion teaches me to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy. If I tried to use that as an excuse for not working on Sunday...I would be fired! Muslims don’t rate special treatment.
Or very low urinals.
Ah...but they might have a problem with the cough medicines?
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