Jay was wrapped up against the cold for the shopping trip
A toddler has been banned from a North Yorkshire shop for wearing a hoodie.
Two-year-old Jay Cowper was wrapped up against the cold in a brown jacket with a furry hood when he went shopping with his grandfather in York.
Jay was asked to remove his hood by staff at Monkton Road Stores because of a “no hoodie” policy designed to tackle problems with troublemakers.
His grandfather refused out of principle and the pair were forced to leave the store.
‘Will not rob’
Jay’s grandmother Brenda Cowper branded the decision “ridiculous”.
She said: “As soon as he walked in he (the owner) said ‘do you mind asking the little boy to take his hood down’.
“My husband looked at him and said ‘he is only two-and-a-half, he is not going to rob you’.”
“The shop owner said ‘well, it’s my policy that nobody comes in and gets served with a hood up’.
“So my husband said he would go somewhere else and with that he just walked out.”
The owner of Monkton Road Stores said his shop had been a constant target of crime and he could not afford to make any exceptions.
