Mailbox bars man - for wearing a yellow jacket!

Aug 24 2007 By Emma Cullwick, Birmingham Mail

FURIOUS Stuart McCullagh was kicked out of Birmingham's Mailbox - for wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket.

Mr McCullagh, who wears the high visibility jacket for his job as an engineer on a nearby building site, had bought a sandwich and was sitting near the canal when he was given his marching orders.

A Mailbox security guard said his luminous jacket meant he didn't look smart enough for the shopping centre.

Today, a spokeswoman for the Mailbox, home to a string of upmarket restaurants and shops including Harvey Nichols, admitted hard hats and high visibility jackets were banned.

She said the policy was in place so that security staff could distinguish the difference between builders or contractors working at the Mailbox and those working on other building sites.

Mr McCullagh, of Fencote Avenue, in Fordbridge, Solihull, condemned the policy, saying it was discriminating against the working classes.

"I think the Mailbox was simply being snobbish and pretentious," he said. "They don't want anyone looking scruffy and are basically saying I need to go to work in a suit to be allowed to purchase my lunch in the Mailbox.

"I work hard for my living, but obviously my working class money is not good enough."

Mr McCullagh said he was left doubly baffled by the situation as he has been eating his lunch in his high visibility jacket at the Mailbox every week day for the past seven months without a problem.

"When the Mailbox security man approached me and told me to leave because of my high visibility jacket, I thought he was joking and I smiled," added Stuart, who lives with full-time mum Sarah Broomhill, 35, her son from a previous relationship Thomas, 13, and the couple's two children, Liam and Erin, both aged one.

A Mailbox spokeswoman insisted the policy was about health, safety and security issues. "In the interests of public health and safety and site security, the Mailbox operates a policy of no hard hats and high visibility jackets to be worn," she said.

"Hard hats and high visibility jackets are worn by official contractors working on the Mailbox site who are issued with permits."