According to various news sources in Canada, a man in New Brunswick has been banned for life from both of his local Tim Hortons coffee/donut shops after complaining a few times too many about the burnt taste of the chain’s decaf. Now he makes his own coffee at home, which is probably just as well for everyone involved.

By this standard, all Consumerist staff should have been banned from Starbucks years ago.

“It was like brown, burnt water,” said Craig. “I almost, you know, got sick in the sink.”

Craig said he voiced his concerns to the store manager and corporate office, then got a meeting with the owner, Edwin Dow.

That’s when Dow served Craig with a letter banning him under the province’s trespass act.

A representative of Tim Hortons defended the ban, claiming that the customer was a nuisance to shop employees, and they needed to put an end to the situation.

Despite free coffees, fresh pots and meetings with the corporate office, he was continually dissatisfied with the quality of the coffee and kept on complaining.

“He became increasingly aggressive with store staff and was impacting their ability to serve other customers,” said [Tim Hortons director of public affairs David] Morelli. “Our staff work long and hard to please each customer every day. But at some point, we have to respectfully agree to disagree, and suggest we go our separate ways.”

There’s definitely a line past which a complaining customer stops goes over the edge of reason and just becomes a nuisance to a business. Where is that line, though? How far can a consumer go before becoming a pest? And is there seriously no other place in St. Andrews, New Brunswick that serves decaf?

Tim Hortons bans complaining customer [CBC] (Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
Tim Hortons defends N.B. ban [Edmonton Sun]

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