I don't often get pissed off enough to actually send a complaint, but maybe I should more often.

Here's what I told Walgreens (NYSE:WAG) about their store at 9400 S. 2000 East, Sandy, UT:

I entered your store on Saturday afternoon, May 3, in order to purchase three small items. I easily located all three items and proceeded to the front checkout, which was unstaffed at the time. An employee approached me and immediately informed me that he could not check me out at the main cash register because I had a "costmetic item" which could only be purchased at the cosmetics counter.

The item? A tube of sunscreen.

I have purchased this same off-the-shelf item at dozens of Walgreens stores around the country, and nowhere have I ever been told that it needed to be handled by a special department.

But at your store, I was forced to wait for about 5-10 minutes behind two other people, also waiting at the cosmetics counter, also purchasing non-cosmetic items. Using the cosmetics counter offered me no additional benefit, and none was desired.

All the while, the employee who had refused to check me out at the main cash register continued milling around at the front of the store doing -- as far as I could tell -- absolutely nothing!

I can only hope that the issue was one employee's misunderstanding of your store policies, and not an unusual and inconsistent policy in this one store. There should be no reason that an off-the-shelf item cannot be purchased at any cash register I choose.

Next time I happen to be in this area, I will surely go to the supermarket across the street where I expect that a tube of sunscreen will be handled quickly and efficiently at the express checkout.

For now, if you happen to be in this area, I'd avoid that particular store. As noted there is a Smith's, aka Kroger (NYSE:KR) store with a fully pharmacy section right across the street.

-btc