Selling Computer Duster to an Abuser at a Retail Store

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

I need a little insight here.

I've been working at this new store. (not going to mention names of places or people here)
It sells a wide variety of items, but we're a relatively small store located near a "projects" in a relatively poor neighborhood. We get a lot of thefts, similar to how my old store was.

Because of this, several items are kept behind the counter in order to make sure they aren't being stolen. One of these is compressed air, commonly used to remove dust from electronics.

There is this one "gentleman", nice guy and all, but he smells like literal shit, always comes in with massive drool stains down his shirt, and isn't at all pleasant to look at.

He always asks for all our available cans of compressed air behind the counter, and pays in cash.
The first time this happened it was rather late and very close to closing time. It was just myself and my boss working registers at that point, and my boss was standing just at the other end of the store in view of my transaction and the customer.

At first when the man asked for the air, I simply glanced over quickly to my boss to see his reaction, to which I was given nothing. In fact, he walked away. So I sold the guy the duster. I didn't feel right. In fact, I felt like I did something wrong, so I actually confronted my boss about it.

I asked if he actually noticed how the guy looked, and that he wanted ALL of our compressed air (at the time, it was three cans). My boss said he did, asked if he paid, I replied yes, and my boss kind of shrugged and said it was a disgusting habit and the guy didn't look like he smelled good...thanks...I already knew that. But he didn't seem to think it was an issue.

He has come in twice since then, buying only the same thing. I am not comfortable doing this. I don't care if I know the guy, I don't care if he pays, I just don't feel right doing it.

TL;DR This guy seems to keep coming in to buy compressed air to huff, and I don't feel right selling it to him. My boss doesn't seem to care. What should I do? Is it legal for my to sell this to him if it's obvious he's abusing it, especially that he's buying so many cans in such a short time?

What should I do if I'm not comfortable selling it to him?

 

[Barbas]

I have no idea what the laws are like over there. It sounds like something you'll eventually have to talk to your boss about, or the police, to find out exactly where the law stands on it. When it comes to legal stuff, I'd say go directly to the police and ask them; that's one of the things I wouldn't trust netizens about. :I

At the very least, if you cannot refuse service to someone based on suspicion that they're abusing the product, it should help put your mind at ease.

 

[Scarim Coral]

From the boss point of the view, at the end of the day, profit was made so he doesn't care the end result of the product.

Also from the customer view, I don't think he's braking the law but again I don't know US laws since he is over 18 and all and you can't outright refuse him without any solid proof.

Best thing you can do really is inform the authorithy and hopefully they do something about it.

 

[mad825]

If it isn't classed as a controlled substance then there's nothing legally you can do. If he's abusing in public then the authorities can act. You can actively refuse serving him although this may reflect negatively to your job as there's no legitimate reason.


Also, relevant song...I would call it NSFW....

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

All the advice I can offer here is see if your boss can get the store to stock the air dusters with bitterant additives. Maybe your current stock of dusters already has that kind of formula and your favorite customer can just power through it like it's barely there. It's worth asking about if you don't sell that kind of duster, though.

If you do eventually switch from vanilla-flavored canned air to the nasty stuff, tell him next time he comes in so he doesn't get pissed if he does try huffing it. (He may not listen since he could be high off his rocker even when walking in, but what can you do.) Don't say why you switched. Just say it's what the company sends you now.

 

[renegade7]

If there's any indication that he has kids or pets or is sharing it with people you can call the police. Outside of that your options are more limited.

First, you do have the right to refuse service to someone, especially someone who's routinely buying out a product that other people might need for legitimate reasons. If that isn't acceptable to your boss, maybe trying putting a limit on how many a person can buy or require people buying it to present ID or disallow paying for computer duster with cash. If your boss won't budge on that, maybe trying persuading him that having a drug addict hanging around using your store to score inhalants is bad for business.

 

[Lightknight]

Unfortunately, unless the laws of changed then you might as well be a bartender selling alcohol to a legal adult that has an alcohol problem. It's still his right to be able to buy it and it's his own lifestyle choice.

You're not wrong for disliking the situation. You're actually being incredibly compassionate by caring what he does in his own time as to how it harms him. You might want to encourage your boss to buy the compressed air that contains bitterent instead as that has been added to discourage huffing or whatever its called.

On a fun side note, my friends and I like to have air compressor wars where we hold the cans upside down (causes it to come out in freezing liquid form) and try to spray each other on open skin (not face). Haha, totally not what it's for but a lot of fun.