MIRAMICHI, New Brunswick - Hoodies, sweatshirts and jackets with a drawstring hood, are popular among teens, but a Canadian retailer sees the apparel as threatening to his workers?? safety and has banned the garments, the Times & Transcript reports.

Brian Kingston, who owns four Petro-Canada stores and Kingston??s Fuels, implemented the rule recently by posting a sign at the store??s entrance forbidding customers with hoodies to enter.

"A few of our employees noticed that in Moncton and places like that, they've been doing this ?" and after consulting with some law enforcement people, it makes it that much easier to see people on camera if anything were to ever happen," said Kingston. "It??s all to do with employee safety, people have a right to feel safe in their work environment. It sounded like a good idea, so we thought we'd implement it. It's just for everyone's safety."

So far, customers are cooperating, and employees ask those who didn??t see the sign to push back their hoods when coming inside.

Sgt. Brian Cummings, who works in the Criminal Investigations Division of the Miramichi Police Force, said Kingston has the first no-hood policy in the city, but that the rule should help deter crime. Someone entering a store wearing a hoodie would "certainly give the clerk a head's-up that something might be amiss, and you'd certainly be hard-pressed to find any police agency that would say that this is a bad policy," said Cummings.