Can’t have your cookie and eat it too, says Marks & Spencer

Retail chain Marks & Spencer found itself getting some unwanted headlines on both sides of the Atlantic when a worker warned British pensioner Thelma Williams (86) she could be fined and even evicted after she ate a cookie she had bought in their store.

Thelma had been shopping in the store with her daughter Deborah Nairn, 50, and grandsons, who treated her to lunch in the cafe. After a toasted sandwich Williams, from Darwen, Lancs, started to eat her cookie. But a staff member at the store in Blackburn told her she could not eat it because of the VAT difference on cafe-bought and shop-bought food.

Williams said, "This woman came up and said, 'You can't eat that here. Unless you put it away we'll call security,'' and she did a matter of seconds later. Then the shop worker said, ''If you don't put it away you can have a heavy fine'."

Williams was too indignant to take the matter lying down, and went to town about it. Cookies and crime; Grandmother treated like shoplifter for eating biscuit in M&S; and Grandmother caught in cookie crackdown were some of the headlines she generated.

"I thought it was petty and ridiculous. I realise they have rules to stick to but it was so silly, I felt stupid. They made me feel like I had committed a crime," Williams said. "The situation was crazy - I would have paid the extra 10p for sitting in the chair to eat it. All the customers were looking at me, it was so embarrassing and very distressing."

Williams asked to speak to the store's manager, but he was not available. Instead she was interviewed by the deputy manager. "Well, she was just out of her depth, didn't really tell me anything," the great-grandmother said. "She never told me it was all right, though. She was just stammering. The security guard was still lurking. At one point the security guard was peeking into my bag and looking at the scone (I had also bought). It was really ridiculous. I was wondering what was going on."