MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A transgender shopper told Local 10 News that she was left stunned after a Miami Beach business she has previously gone to told her to leave.
"You won't let me shop in this store," Cassandra Hefton is heard on cellphone video asking a Sabor Tropical Supermarket manager.
Cellphone video captured the confrontation between Hefton and the grocery store manager, who is accused of discrimination.
The video was shot inside the supermarket on Normandy Drive in Miami Beach by Hefton, a transgender woman who said she had shopped there for years until the manager decided she wasn't allowed anymore.
"What is the reason?" Hefton said she asked him. "(He said) 'I don't know.' (I said,) 'What do you mean, you don't know?'"
Hefton said she left the first time and then shopped there a few more times with no issues.
But she said a few weeks later, the same manager noticed her.
"(He said,) 'I told you, you can't be here.' I said, 'Well, I don't know that I can't be here. I have a right to be here,'" Hefton said.
Hefton said she believes she was being discriminated against because she is transgender.
"I have a right to come into this public store and buy food," she said in the video.
Hefton said the manager called police as she tried to pay for her items and the clerk told her she was instructed not to let her pay for her food.
According to Miami Beach city code, discrimination against anyone because of their gender identity is illegal.
After police arrived and spoke to the manager, Hefton said the manager finally agreed to let her pay for her food.
"If he's doing this to me, he's doing it to others," she said.