Gay Couple Banned From Walmart Over Lighter Dispute

A gay couple said they have been banned from Walmart for life after a dispute arose involving BIC lighters.

The South Bend Tribune reports that on Aug. 16, Joe Paolucci and Thomas Hitchcock said they were stopped by store employees at the Niles, Mich., Walmart who suspected they had stolen lighters. Paolucci and Hitchcock had used the self-scanning checkout to buy the lighters. They said the two of them, along with 11-year-old twin sons, were told they had to be detained for questioning.

The couple said they refused and asked the store personnel to call police. When police arrived, instead of the matter reaching immediate resolution, Paolucci and Hitchcock were arrested and put in the back of separate police cars.

The police eventually reviewed store tapes and determined that Paolucci and Hitchcock had paid for the lighters. But that’s when store personnel read them a statement that said they would be banned from the store for life. The reason they gave was that Paolucci and Hitchcock had been “uncooperative.” They said they were then told to leave immediately or be arrested for trespassing.

"Everything they asked us to do, we did. We cooperated 100 percent," Paolucci told the Tribune. "We objected only when they tried to get us to go into the detention room."

Following the incident, the twins told their fathers that the security staff had allegedly threatened them and made disparaging remarks about their lifestyle.

For Walmart’s part, the company’s counsel R. McKinley Elliott said that videotapes revealed nothing improper done by store employees or the police officers. The Tribune obtained a copy of the police report that indicated Paolucci and Hitchcock “causing a scene, being very loud and disrupting customers while yelling and swearing at Walmart security."

The report also said that a Walmart employee said the twin boys were not threatened. They were merely told that if they weren’t quiet, they would go sit in the police car with the officers. The report adds that the boys even apologized “for being disrespectful.”

Paolucci and Hitchcock said they likely won’t file a lawsuit against Walmart because attorneys have told them Walmart typically plays “hardball”.

"We could spend a couple million dollars to sue them," Paolucci said.

But he added that after the incident, Walmart sent them a letter asking them to pay 10 times the cost of the lighters ($158.40), which the store still believes were stolen by Paolucci and Hitchcock, to settle the incident once and for all. The couple said they will not pay the bill and will fight Walmart against paying it.

While most people would avoid getting banned from Walmart, one man has started a Web site that invites people to come up with ways to purposely get banned from the store .