Job Status Up in the Air for Cedar Falls Employee Who Opposed Earl May Cat Ban

A semi-retired gardener at the Nursery and Garden Center in Cedar Falls may have been let go following his opposition to a corporate ban on cats in the store, which includes two familiar felines at the Cedar Falls location.

According to the company's Facebook page, the ban was due to insurance liability reasons.

What do you think of Earl May's ban on cats in the store?

"Regrettably, after many years of having pet cats greet our customers, we have to abandon this policy due to insurance liability issues. We know that we have customers who lovingly come in to visit our friends on a regular basis and will sorely miss seeing them in our stores," the Facebook page states.

The national attention and generated negative feedback for Earl May. The news was first reported by the local newspaper, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

Here is a sampling of feedback left on the the company's Facebook page:

• No more Earl May for me, and I'm allergic to cats.
• The cats give your stores a home like feel and I don't even like cats. Why now? People are a liability too. Are you gonna run your store with robots next?
• earl may is expensive in comparison to other stores in the area. The cat made our trips there worthwhile- gave the store a more "homey" feeling; like you were getting supplies from a family owned type operation and not a giant faceless big box store.

Aside from the mainstay cats, Steve and Ginny, who had greeted customers and kept pests away from the store's bird seed, another casualty of the ban could be eight-year employee Rich Congdon.

Congdon spoke against the ban to the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. The paper now reports his employment status is uncertain, at best. 

Congdon wrote in an email he was still "trying to clarify (his) employment status," but Congdon's son-in-law, James Barry, said the garden chain fired Congdon after the story "went national" and generated "a lot of complaints" to their headquarters.

"Rich was semi-retired anyhow, but did enjoy his work there," Barry noted in an email Monday.

Employees at the Cedar Falls store declined comment and referred questions to the corporate headquarters when Patch stopped by earlier this week. However, on the counter was a petition with numerous signatures opposing the ban.