Business ProfileforJust Food for Dogs

Richard **** SVP is banning clients who place a negative review of the service and product via yelp google and has had contact with me to persuade me to increase for my better review as he looses clients as he put it when I declined to change my opinion he silenced me by violating my 1st amendment right and retaliation against clients

Mr. Garcia and his partner have been a client of the West Hollywood establishment for multiple years. During that time he has been verbally abusive to staff, made idle threats, and in many cases "difficult" to deal with. All part of retail. But when it's coupled with demands that aren't realistic Mr. Garcia is belligerent with staff and aggressive. There have been cases where the staff has had to say "no" to his requests. Which is rare for us because we practice a "Just say YES!" business model. Occasionally these have been issues out of our control - no more delivery windows, lack of fresh product due to selling out, supply restraints, or staff shortages. This has led to a vicious cycle with Yelp, Google, and potentially other social platforms where Mr. Garcia belittles the brand with a lack of patience or understanding to his personal responsibility as we work through a global pandemic. We're all in this together, Mr. Garcia doesn't seem to subscribe to this theory in my opinion.

Our goal is to help every pet, we want each of them to live long, healthy lives. At no time do we want to turn business away or allow a pet to suffer. But at no time should social platforms be weaponized as a way to demoralize employees or air grievances multiple times. We asked Mr. Garcia after years of excellent service why he only chose to utilize Yelp as a way to vocalize complaints, rather than speak to us directly or be kind enough to place a review for the differences we made with his pet and it was met with continued hostility. Since Mr. Garcia was rigid and impatient with various challenges with supply chain through COVID issues, and employees having concern that they'd be named personally in social media complaints or reviews, we made the difficult decision to ask Mr. Garcia not to return since it didn't seem as though we could accommodate his needs in a way that was polite, professional, and non-threatening. Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. Disappointing, because his pet dog Lialani suffers here.

I suggested to Mr. Garcia that if he'd like to continue with our brand he's welcome to shop at Pet Food Express, Petco, or online. I actually also suggested various competitors because the most important issue for me is the health of his pet. At no time was Mr.. Garcia's 1st Amendment Rights violated. He's allowed to state anything (short of libel/slander) that he'd like online. With that can be consequences. We're a private business and chose to ensure the safety and mental well being of our employees first and foremost. So unfortunately we've asked Mr. Garcia to find another solution to purchase his pet's food. If you'd like to review the reviews in question, or Mr. Garcia's overall tone with businesses I've included a link below. You're welcome to reach out to me directly if I can add more substance to this comment.

https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=Nu0IEcBVcu7Z_4peo9yiYw

Richard Wold
SVP of National Retail Operations and Development
********@justfoodfordogs.com