Chicken Licken Welkom, Free State

On the 18th of August I had the most frustratingly weird experience at Chicken Licken Welkom, in the Free State. After "refusing" to use the store's hand sanitizer for reasons given to both the cashier and her manager I was told that I would not be serviced.

What I found funny about this experience is the patronising explanation by the manager who introduced himself as "Isaac".

The whole story began when I showed Isaac and his subordinate my "SandeX" pocket hand sanitizer, which clearly stated all the germ fighting ingredients including the "required" 70% alcohol clearly visible on the bottle.

According to Isaac, his Chicken Licken head office told him to use his discretion when it comes to "not so clear" government's covid regulations. He said that the government requires their stores to sanitise all their customers, but didn't say anything about customers who carries their own sanitizers, therefore with his head office's instruction, he is allowed to use his discretion by disqualifying my personal hand sanitizer.

Needless to say that my efforts to reason with Isaac by telling him that businesses use different ingredients on the product (effective or not), therefore reasons for one to carry a personal sanitizer ranged from skin allergies, cross-infection to smell intolerance, all proved futile.

I asked him if he can prove the ineffectiveness of my hand sanitizer, obviously he couldn't, therefore his final conclusion was to refuse me the service...

I drove more than 20 minutes to the store because for some reason my sick mother proffered the store over the closer one. The most frustrating part was for me to drive back without what I was looking for. I would really like to have some kind of clarity as to how does Chicken Licken's hand sanitizer differs from everybody else's, especially since all other businesses and public premises have been accepting the practice of customers who carries own sanitizers and actually commending it.