Pastor demands action after discount store goes without air conditioning for weeks - OKC, OK - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

Customers, with the assistance of a local pastor, are complaining about the lack of air conditioning in the Family Dollar at N.E. 23rd and Martin Luther King. Can you imagine the employees having to work in those conditions?

Article text:

Residents and shoppers are frustrated after they say workers at a store in northeast Oklahoma City have been left in the heat.

Residents say it's unbearable to shop at the Family Dollar store, located on N.E. 23rd and Martin Luther King Blvd.

"I had to hurry up and come out. I didn't get all of the things I needed because it was too hot in there,” Ladoris Penn said.

"So this is not the first time. It's all the time and it just needs to be replaced,” another resident said.

Shoppers say it has been this way for two weeks when temperatures topped out in the triple digits.

"People are coming in here to shop and it's 96 degrees. You can't do it. It's too hot,” Pastor Derrick Scobey said.

On Wednesday, Pastor Derrick Scobey told News 4 that the air conditioning was still not working at the Family Dollar.

"When I came a few nights ago, they were this way and now this morning, they're the same,” Pastor Scobey said.

He says many items were half-priced or not available to buy, and he says it smelled like spoiled food.

"It's really unbearable and it's unfair for the employees first and foremost, but it's also unfair for our community as a whole,” Scobey said.

Community members tell News 4 that the Family Dollar near N.E. 10th and I-35 didn't have heat in the winter. When our crews went to check on it, an employee said it had just been fixed after being broken for several months.

"They have the finance to repair it but when you are at the bottom of the totem pole, it's, 'We'll get to you when we get to you,'” he said.

The air conditioning problems come months after News 4 did a story when a nearby store owned by the same company had no heat last winter. Pastor Scobey said the company ultimately responded to the complaint, and he's hoping the same will happen this time.

"So just others will understand the deplorable conditions going on here that someone may see it and say, 'You know what? I have the stroke to do something about it, and I'm going to make sure something is done about it,'” Scobey said.

News 4 reached out to Family Dollar’s corporate offices. They told us they delivered a new system and it is scheduled to be installed today.

Type of publication: Television When was the article reported?: 08/14/2019 Publication: Oklahoma's News 4 Article Url: [Web Link] Is Registration Required?: no How widespread was the article reported?: local News Category: Health/Medicine

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