THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 11, 1995 TAG: 9501110389
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Leggett Stores Inc. said Tuesday that employees will no longer record shoppers' race on personal checks, a practice that drew criticism from some customers and minority community leaders.
``We apologize to any customers who may have been offended by this practice,'' Robert A. Leggett III, executive vice president, said in a statement Tuesday.
Cashiers at Leggett's four area department stores had used a stamp to print checks with the letters W-B-O-M-F, or white, black, other, male and female. The company policy, which is used to combat check fraud, offended some shoppers.
Stores were told to pull the stamps Monday afternoon, said Jeffrey V. Haley, assistant corporate operations manager.
Haley said the South Boston-based chain did not intend to anger customers. Instead, the company has held onto the policy at several stores because it believes a shopper's race is required to get a warrant in certain localities, Haley said. Retailers may have to file warrants to try to recoup losses from rubber or fraudulent checks.
The policy has been used only at ``several Tidewater-area Leggett stores,'' Haley said. Leggett has about 40 stores.
Several law enforcement officials in Hampton Roads said a person's race is not required to get a warrant, though it helps. However, the state forms that retailers fill out include spaces for race and gender, said Allen Pack, Newport News' chief magistrate.
``I tell you, it's rare when a retailer doesn't have that information,'' Pack said. ``I don't know if they remember it or code it.''
Pack said he has heard of retailers using number codes for race. For example, a merchant might write 1 for white, 2 for black, 3 for Asian, and so on.
Customers might not notice the number codes, but the initials ``W-B-O-M-F'' aren't hard to figure out.
``That's not a rocket-scientist code there,'' Margie Johnson, a Virginia Beach retail consultant, has said.
Black leaders in the community say Leggett's policy had offended customers, several of whom had complained to the Chesapeake branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. by CNB