Customer tries to use employee’s tip jar to pay for her order, refuses to leave and starts hassling other shoppers for handouts: ‘I have to follow the law. It doesn't matter if you're a Hollywood actor, a politician, [or] someone without housing’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jul 11, 2025 1:00 PM EDT

Every retail worker has a story about that one customer who treats the shop like a charity and the staff like a personal ATM, but this one takes the cake and tries to pay for it with the tip jar. In the wild world of dispensary retail, where the only thing more heavily regulated than the product is the patience of the employees, there's always someone convinced that the rules are just a suggestion and the tip money is up for grabs. Enter the customer who strolls in, budget firmly set at one dollar, and immediately eyes the employee tips like she's discovered a secret stash of Monopoly money.

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  • I work at a dispensary in the downtown area of my city. We get all kinds of people coming in to pick up their products from business people in town for a conference, locals who live in the surrounding apartments, tourists, and people "just in the area."
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  • Customer tried to use employee tip money for purchase

    "I've only got like a dollar, but yall have money, I'll just take some of that" NITED STATES DEAM IN GOD TIPS GARN 20
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • What we dont get a lot of is people acting like the staff has some sort of grudge against them personally when they are refused service.
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  • The bulk of people who get irritated at us are easy to brush off. It doesn't matter that someone is 62 if their ID is expired. It's the law and Im not going to jail and getting this whole place possibly shut down because you flew out of your home state with an expired ID.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • So... the story:
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  • A couple days ago, maybe 4 now, we had a customer come in. At first she knocked at the front door, then apparently got upset with another customer because we didn't answer the unlocked door while busy.
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  • Weird, but whatever, she has now made it inside. This customer was a new one and was wanting a small j***t and said she didnt have much money. No problem, we have inexpensive options, but with tax our least expensive item is about $6.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • She starts looking at the menu and says, "I've only got like a dollar, but yall have money, I'll just take some of that."
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  • I wasn't the one helping this customer. But I was the manager on duty so I was listening in at this point. My coworker, I'll refer to as G, was helping her and this was the conversation that followed.
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  • G: We dont have anything for a dollar and I can't just give away product.
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  • Customer: Well, yall got all kinds of money over there, and in there. (Points to our employee tip jars at each register)
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  • G:That's not money I can give away. It isn't mine and I'm not allowed to give any customers money aside from their change.
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  • Cust: well yall got the money, so why dont you just give me a __?
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  • G: I can't do that. If you're unable to make a purchase I need to ask you to leave so I can help the next customer in line.
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  • Cust: well I dont see why yall hate me, you can just give me the need to be a j You dont about it.
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  • G: ma'am, it is not legal for me to give away anything in this store, we can't dig into tip money to make a sale to a customer, and I'm going to have to ask that you leave now. Please have a good rest of your day.
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  • (We pool tips for the full day and split among the people who worked that day based on how many hours they were there working)
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  • Customer kinda roams around the store, continuing to say things like "yall got money" and "it's just a __, yall should just give it to me." She even reaches out to the tip jars a couple times pointing at them and saying "money is right there."
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  • She did eventually leave, but it also took one of our regular customers, who works security for a liquor store close by, to ask me and G if we would like assistance in removing the customer.
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  • Customer goes outside, but not even a minute later, a new customer came in and told me that she was sitting out front trying to bu y people coming in to buying her something inside.
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  • I then had to go and stand outside to wait for her to leave the property because her soliciting other customers to buy for her can get my store in just as much trouble as giving away product.
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  • I told her that I needed her to leave because she was not legally allowed to have someone else buy for her.
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  • If we have a suspicion that someone is buying for a third party, not in the store with them at the time, we are required by policy and law to refuse the sale and mark the customer profile with a note saying they shop for people outside the store.
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  • I love the product I work with. It has so many uses and benefits that I always want to support people learning about and using the plant, but I have to follow the law.
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  • It doesn't matter if you're a Hollywood actor (we have gotten a few), a politician, someone without housing, or a personal friend... you will be treated the same when it comes to the laws surrounding the business I'm in.
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  • It has no standing on who you are and everything to do with how heavily regulated the industry is.
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  • It’s a shame there aren’t any places dispensing reason, because the logic is flawless in its delusion: if you can see the cash, surely it’s fair game, and if you say no, you’re obviously just being mean. Never mind that the tips are the hard-earned spoils of people who have spent all day explaining the difference between strains and hybrids to tourists from Ohio. When told no, she doesn’t miss a beat, launching into a campaign of guilt, entitlement, and increasingly creative accusations of staff hatred, all while orbiting the tip jars like a moth to a forbidden flame.

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workplace-stories hr manager retail costumer work california managers supervisor workplace dispensery work-life balance entitled people
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