When former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) saw a sign at a Wal-Mart checkout lane indicating that a cashier with a non-Anglo-Saxon name couldn’t sell alcohol products, he immediately accused the retail giant of bowing to Sharia law.
Except that it’s actually store policy not to allow underage employees to sell cigarettes and alcohol.
In a blog post published Monday, West described a recent trip to a Dallas area Wal-Mart with his daughter. West thought it curious that an employee put up a sign in their checkout lane that read “No alcohol products in this lane,” and raised his eyebrows further when he noticed that the cashier’s name tag indicated that his name was “NOT ‘Steve.'”
West thought those two signs taken together could only mean one thing: the cashier was a Muslim who refused to scan alcohol products because he observed Sharia law.
“Imagine that, this employee at Walmart refused to just scan a bottle or container of an alcoholic beverage — and that is acceptable,” West wrote. “A Christian business owner declines to participate or provide service to a specific event — a gay wedding — which contradicts their faith, and the State crushes them.”
The blog post was originally titled “Sharia law comes to Walmart?”, according to a screenshot posted by Media Matters. But at some point after it was published, the post was updated with an editor’s note that invalidated the premise.
“We spoke to the Walmart store, and apparently employees under 21 years old are prohibited from selling cigarettes and alcohol,” the editor’s note read. “However, that isn’t to say Walmart isn’t selectively caving to Muslim demands, such as this case regarding Halal meat in Ohio.”
The title of the blog post was also changed to “More ominous signs of Christian prosecution.”
It’s unclear whether West actually tried to purchase any alcohol from the underage cashier.
