Customers walking into the Safeway outside the Waterfront Metro station are bombarded with warnings in the form of all-caps signs on the glass doors.

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“Attention! Video taping in progress.”

“No children are allowed in the Safeway before 4 p.m. without an adult.”

“Shoplifting is stealing! We prosecute shoplifters. Please do not risk it!”

And now a new one, inside the store, asking customers to please present their receipts for inspection at the exit.

The policy went into effect on Monday, and already customers are falling in line. Most of the shoppers exiting the store on Tuesday morning have their receipts in hand, some stretched out in anticipation as they approach the door. Two smiling women stand at the entrance and give the receipts a quick glance before marking them with a pen. In half an hour, only one man questions the process.

“What are you doing?” he asks as one of the women makes a small dash on his receipt. She tells him that she’s just marking it. He shrugs and leaves with his canvas tote.

But just because no one is making a fuss this morning doesn’t mean people are happy.

“I think that’s ridiculous,” says Leon Tarrant, who lives across the street from the store. “Checking your receipt? I don’t understand these Draconian measures we have for everything.”

Other shoppers agree that checking receipts feels like a scare tactic. “It can be intimidating to people coming in,” says Gerard Schave, who also lives in the neighborhood and comes to the store twice a week. “I don’t think most people want to be bothered at an entrance.” The policy reminds Schave, who is black, of times he felt singled out by security at stores around the city. “Next time they ask for a receipt, I’m going to keep on walking,” he says.

That’s what Kermit Thomas did when asked to show a receipt on Monday. “I just looked at them and said come watch the cash register,” he says. “I’m not showing you a receipt. They couldn’t say nothing but smile.”

Safeway spokesperson Craig Muckle confirms that customers who decline to show a receipt will not be stopped. “If someone were to refuse, there’s no commotion made or anything like that,” he says. “They’re able to go.” Muckle maintains that the employees manning the door are not security guards; in fact, he says that the new receipt-checking policy is not a security measure at all.