http://www.toledofreepress.com/?id=6406

 

A 29-year-old woman who was asked to leave PacSun, a fashion accessories 
store at Westfield Franklin Park mall, for breast-feeding her 12-month-old son, 
Zane, may pursue legal action to resolve the incident, which she said violated 
her rights under Ohio Revised Code.

 

Melanie Flores declined to say whether she will seek monetary damages, but 
she did say she is undertaking an effort to enact “Zane's Law,” a proposal she 
hopes to help introduce into U.S. Congress requiring retail outlets and other 
public entities to include literature informing employees of a mother's right to 
breast-feed. The law also would mandate a posting of mothers' breast-feeding 
rights alongside current federal, state and OSHA compliance policies such as 
equal opportunity employment and the federal minimum wage rate.

To help promote her cause, Flores constructed a Web site at 
www.myspace.com/mflo1978, available to myspace.com members. She 
equated the public's apparent unfamiliarity with the law to a tree falling in the 
forest. If no one is there to hear it, does it really make a sound?

“All the other states also have laws that pertain to breast-feeding and a 
woman's right to breast-feed in public, so I would like a national law that 
states during orientation, employees are informed of the law and let them 
know that what these women are doing is for the good of their child, and 
there's nothing wrong with it, and they are protected by the law,” Flores said.

Fritz Byers, Flores' attorney, who specializes in communications law, civil 
rights and constitutional rights, said, “There certainly is civil cause for action.” 
He said Flores hopes to avoid litigation in convincing PacSun, its parent 
company, Pacific Sunwear, and the Westfield Group, which operates the mall, 
to implement policies recognizing a mother's right to breast-feed in public.

“Ms. Flores really wants to undertake a resolution that will entail education 
and training of store and mall workers so that those individuals understand 
what the law provides,” Byers said. “It's clear the people who operate the mall 
do so without informing their tenants of what the law is, and that's not 
acceptable. It's also clear that Pacific Sunwear operates stores without 
informing their employees of what the law is, and that's not acceptable.”

Flores sat down on a bench in the back of the store on Sept. 11 to breast-
feed Zane, who was unsatisfied with the spoon-feeding he received minutes 
earlier. Afterward a store employee identified only as “Amy” demanded that 
she leave if she chose to resume breast-feeding, according to Flores. Security 
arrived, and Flores was escorted to the security office to file an incidence 
report.

“I'm obviously upset and crying,” she related. “I'm trying to not look people in 
the face because I'm like, ‘What if somebody that is a parent of somebody my 
daughter goes to school with sees me? What if somebody who is an 
acquaintance sees me? They're probably wondering what I stole from who.'”

Westfield released a statement from the office of Katy Dickey, executive vice 
president of communications, which reads, “We are aware of the situation and 
it is unfortunate that the customer had a bad experience. We are in contact 
with the retailer.

“Westfield Franklin Park has Family Lounges specifically designed for the needs 
of mothers with nursing stations, bottle warmers, changing stations and 
microwaves. For those mothers who don't need the privacy and comfort of the 
family lounges we do have soft seating available and located throughout the 
mall.”

A spokesperson for Pacific Sunwear, Tim Borland, director of store operations 
at the corporate office in Anaheim, Calif., declined comment.

In an e-mail to Toledo Free Press, Flores stated that the PacSun store 
employee told her, ‘“… you can't just go around throwing your breasts out 
where ever (sic) you'd like.'”

“I would just like them to know that you need to separate breast-feeding from 
lewd sexual acts,” said Flores. “And I think that's the problem here is that a 
lot of people think breast-feeding has something to do with lewd sexual acts 
being performed in public when it's the exact opposite. It's a mother taking 
care of their child.”

Flores said she chooses to breast-feed to help her son develop immunity to 
celiac disease, a genetically predisposed, chronic digestive disorder. Yet all 
infants and mothers can benefit from breastfeeding, according to Sharla Cook, 
a lactation consultant and registered dietician at St. Vincent Mercy Family 
Care Center. She cited lower breast-cancer rates in premenopausal women as 
well as lower incidents of obesity and diabetes and higher IQs in infants by a 
range of seven to 10 points.

“There are huge benefits, and we'd save lots of health care dollars if moms 
would breast-feed because the babies wouldn't get sick as often,” Cook 
said. “In the formula, there're no antibodies and nothing to help the baby stay 
healthy, whereas breast-feeding, the breast milk has a lot of antibodies and 
cancer-killing substances. You cannot overfeed a breast-fed baby because 
you can't force them to take a breast; you can always force a bottle in their 
mouth.”

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