On May 3rd my 4 year old son and I went into Chuppas Marketplace in Parma to buy a couple things. They have carts for kids that he loves to push around. He picked up a watermelon asking for it, I told him No and he set it back down. I tell my son we need tomatoes and we walk over to them, so he puts a vine in his cart and that is when Barbara approaches us from behind the counter she was ringing people up at. she went out of her way. At first I thought she was being friendly asking my son if he "has any money to buy the tomatoes", he laughs and says "my mommy does". She starts to pick the tomatoes out of his cart but I was already trying to bag them. Meanwhile my son is directly behind me thinking that he is shopping for cheese (with the cart they provide for children). Instead of Barbara Chuppa letting me proceed with shopping and deal with returning the product my son did not harm back to the shelf she takes it upon herself. She grabs the product from within my sons hands and tells him "you cant touch anything in this store, it's for only grown ups not children". I told her thank you and I could handle my son. She tells me that she isn't a baby sitter and I need to watch my son, the place isn't for running marathons and he shouldn't be touching anything we don't plan to buy. Sure I get it, but for her to put her hands on my son and to confront him instead of me was over the line. So she tells me word for word "Your just acting like a moron, " and grabs my arm. when i asked her what just called me she tells me "you know what your being." This woman has now put her hands on both my son and I and called me out of my name. So I ask to talk to a manager and she tells me there is no one and she is the manager. I pick my son up and try to find someone to help me get a manager to talk to. She gets Paul Chuppa Sr, her husband. This guy looked right through me. When I told him the lady called me a name she claimed "I was putting words in her mouth because she would never do that", She point blank lied directly in front of me. Paul Sr tells me a few things like she has grand kids so she knows how to handle kids (she shouldn't be handling a complete strangers child at all), that she was obviously not going to get reprimanded about this because she is his wife and the mother of the place, and that "other peoples children destroy products and she was trying to keep that from happening", and that he shouldn't touch product we aren't planning to buy (even tough we were buying the tomatoes he originally grabbed). I ask him if there is a unbiased person that i can talk to about the harassment and he told me "It is just me, my son and my daughter so your just going to have to leave".
I am so embarrassed by these people so I reach out to my husband who wants to simply resolve the situation and get an apology from Barbara because she harassed us and to possibly be able to remain a customer. While we are about to talk to Paul and waiting for the police to come a random nobody lady approaches us and starts yelling at me no more than a foot from me, about how I am a bad mom because i should learn to control my child and how dare I blame the Chuppas for wrongdoing and that I deserve to get 1800kids called on me (while she is pulling out her phone to call them i guess). I tell her to mind her business, get out of my face and go sit in her car to wait to be a witness about 15 times before the police get her. Paula Sr. tried to set up a 4 year old by denting a watermelon, The dent was the size of a grown mans thumbprint and my son has a tiny 4 year old finger. Let's be real here, my son has never destroyed any product in any store, he knows better and I would have dealt with it. For all we know they didn't even grab the same one my son did. The first thing the cops did was pull Paul Sr over and they told him that they weren't going to do anything about this. they told me that they were too busy to deal with this and to hurry up. They told me a police report wasn't going to do anything but collect dust in a filing cabinet and they weren't going to review tapes or go inside to talk to the woman. When the son Paul Chuppa attempted to seem like he was being a peacemaker we knew we were already wasting our breath. We let him know that we will be contacting all of you out there to help. They have to Police in their pockets, Police families shop there and Chuppa's allows the Parma police to hold Sobriety Check points in their parking lot. Their son goes to Padua and was on sports teams celebrated by the Parma mayor. The city wont help us and will allow a 4 year old child and his mother to get harassed by a family business. They will all have each other backs. They have every right to refuse business to anyone but they have no right to assault other people and their children and the police let them get away with it.
There are similar reviews out there of them making women and children feel unwelcome, this is not the first incident here. read more