Yet another bleading heart mossie

A black man shopping for paint with his four-year-old son says he was racially profiled and refused service at Hobbycraft after staff said he may use the paint for “doing graffiti”.

Louis Gray, who works for Sport Wales as equality, diversity and inclusion manager, said he wanted to buy spray paint in order to make over his son’s bicycle helmet in the colours of his favourite mountain bike rider.

They were only able to buy the supplies after calling a white relative to make the purchase, Gray said, accusing Hobbycraft of not valuing “the black pound”.

Hobbycraft said it was investigating the incident as a matter of urgency.

Gray said he and his son, Parker, were refused service at the Hobbycraft store on the Harlech retail park in Newport on Saturday afternoon, after the store manager said: “We can’t serve you, you could be doing graffiti with this.”

He said that after he asked them why they made that assumption, staff said they were in fact implementing a “Challenge 25” policy, asking anyone who looks under 25 for ID when purchasing an age-restricted product. Age-restricted products include knives, aerosol paints, Christmas crackers and helium, among others.