Awareness Shop — Local services in Town of New Paltz

Awareness Shop Refuses to Let 8 Month Pregnant Regular Customer Use Bathroom & Sends Her Out in 22 Degree Weather To Find Public Restroom

(Pains me to post this as before such awful treatment I would have given 5 star review)

The quick and dirty: After paying for my reading and spending money on the raffle (about $45 in total, before tip), Lisa, the shop owner refused to let me use the bathroom despite the fact that I’m eight months pregnant, a fairly regular customer, and look like I’m smuggling bowling balls under my shirt. It was a true emergency. In the past, Anton, and other employees have allowed me to use it in far less urgent situations. It had just snowed, was extremely cold, and sidewalks were extra slippery – but it was either pee on their floor, or waddle up the half a block to use a public restroom in Dedrick's plaza. I so graciously chose the latter.

It was the psychic fair on New Years Weekend, so as expected, there was a wait for my reading. I killed time by spending $5 on the raffle for seven chances to win a $1 Snickers bar.

“At least the money goes to a great cause,” I said to the woman operating the raffle. I didn’t mind at all. What was unexpected though, was how I was treated when I asked to use the bathroom – a bathroom I’d used a number of times in the past, in far less urgent situations.

As any woman who’s ever experienced pregnancy knows, these things are out of our control. Our little mini-mes love nothing more than tap dance on our bladders at the most inopportune times.

Lisa’s reason for not letting me use the restroom? If I let you use it, I’ll have to let everyone else use it. (Like every patron in the store is suddenly going to rush up to her, insisting that they too should be able to use the bathroom if the pregnant woman got to…)To add insult to injury, after I hobbled up the half-a-block and back (on the icy sidewalk) to use the public bathroom at the convenience store, one of the readers so generously offered me a bottle of water.

The whole experience sucked to say the least. When I got back, I waited in the stairwell because the chairs were occupied. When it was finally my turn, I asked I Anton if there was any salt for my negative energy, because I had quite a bit of it to let go of. I explained the situation to him, and let him know I stayed because it wasn’t his fault, but that it was really crappy.

He weakly defended the shop policy, assumed the blame, assured me it wasn’t personal and that I’m a lovely person. (Though in the past, he was the one who allowed me to use the ladies’ room but I didn’t want to spend my forty minutes debating that, nor did I want to ruin the energy of the reading.)

As always, he offered insight with humor in his signature ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ style, while doing a great job of not looking distracted as our minutes begin to run out. (I wanted an hour, but he only had 40 min available). Also he was very patient and entertained my amateur/fatalistic interpretations of the cards. Great reading. He definitely had a long day, and had to deal with moving everyone’s cars from the parking lot due to snow plowing issues, on top of being booked solid.

Unfortunately, I won’t be returning due to the ridiculous bathroom situation. I’ll honestly miss the shop and my previous experiences and the awesome people there. But I just can’t go back to a place that turns away a paying pregnant woman in need of a rest room in the middle of winter - or anyone really who had an emergency situation. If you’re going to treat customers like random people off the street – at least say “the toilet’s broken”, lie, and have some tact. The one star in this review is for Anton’s reading (He deserves 5 stars – but the rest of the experience was 0). Sorry for graphic details – but needed to convey the sense of humiliation I experienced. I realize the loss of my business equates to a rounding error on a slow day for them…but still sucks to be treated like that, especially in a place that claims to be about...

EDIT: I originally gave this business a two star review. But after their long winded and passive aggressive reply to this review, I decided to change it to one star. A reply along the lines of "Yes, the cases are to prevent theft because our margins are slim. But our staff really doesn't mind getting things out of cases. It's really not a big deal - they do it all the time and are happy to do so. We hope you'll give us another chance," would have been more appropriate. I read some replies they wrote on other reviews and found an incredibly passive aggressive reply to a four star review. I mean, dang, it was a four star review. That person wasn't out to get you. This kind of interaction with your customers creates a lot of negative energy.

REVIEW: This is a small store and almost everything is in locked glass cases. While I understand cases might be necessary for theft prevention, not being able to touch the merchandise takes away from the shopping experience. There are signs everywhere telling you to ask for help and there was a helpful and available salesperson working. But I don't want to ask someone to open a case every time I want to look at the back of a box of tarot cards or feel the weight of a crystal. It was awkward. We didn't...

This place had the worst vibes. If you’re empathic this is not the place for you. There’s a horrible energy in this store and nothing helps it. I stepped through the door and was greeted by glares, I felt sick to my stomach and extremely unwelcome. Everything is Wiccan/Celtic pagan based. I was hoping to find Norse Pagan materials or books, and found nothing but endless cultural appropriation blatantly labeled as Wiccan accessories. The store was so tiny and had too many people in it to be properly socially distanced. Almost all materials are locked up making them impossible to properly examine without the help of staff WHICH is nearly impossible considering how many people were in the store. It’s very hard to get around because of these display cases. Prices for some items are decent. This store is awful and I’m never returning. Once again I cannot stress this enough, the energy is TERRIBLE. It made me want to leave immediately. If you guys are gonna sell sage, Palo Santo, and items to smoke cleanse with, why don’t you use them?? You’re gonna steal from POC cultures anyway so,,✋🏼 I felt like I was in hell not a...