Customers of the borough’s main school-uniform supplier say the store has no problem sticking its patrons out in the pouring rain.
As the very last day students can buy and pick up their custom-school uniforms, the Tuesday after Labor Day is always a hectic one at Flynn & O’Hara on Westchester Square.
Lines curl around the block as hundreds of procrastinators wait over three hours to get their duds for the new school year.
However, parents that had ordered their uniforms earlier, but were sent the wrong product, were also directed to stand in the same line, in the downpour on Tuesday, September 6..
“It was incredibly unprofessional,” said Stephanie Dominguez of Pennyfield Avenue.
Dominguez arrived that morning after her eight-year-old son, who attends Villa Maria Academy, was sent the wrong color uniform. She was told to get to the back a line with several hundred other bustomers.
“The problem is, they need to make an exchange line,” she said. “There’s no dedicated line. If you go to Old Navy they have a line just for exchanges.”
While most of the people huddled under umbrellas were there to buy new uniforms, many others were in the same position as Dominguez and her son.
She said she “forced” her way into the store after a heated argument with a security guard. Many others found themselves in the same position.
“I said ‘I’m not going to wait on this line. You guys sent me the wrong stuff.”
It was a tough choice, she said, between spending four hours on line in the rain because of a mix up by the store, or showing her son an overly aggressive side of her personality.
“It was difficult to have that altercation with my kids there,” she said.
Flynn and O’Hara management’s phones were busy throughout the day.
But the line, which curled all the way onto Seabury Avenue, was nothing new for this time of year at the multi-store Flynn & O’Hara. As the only custom-uniform supplier in the area, students and families came from all over the Bronx and upper Manhattan to purchase the school garments.
“Last year went a little faster, but it was still over two hours,” said 17 year-old Mott Hall Bronx High School student Phillip Matias, who spent four hours waiting to get his uniform this year.
But in typical teenager fashion, he put it off until the last minute.
“You can get the uniforms throughout the summer,” he said. “But who wants to do that?”
Dominguez and others did, yet were still subject to the same inconvenience.
