alt Hacker NewsThe store manager has a lot of flexibility, and some of the staff are also empowered to take care of things.
If you feel you are being overcharged, see the manager. If you're nice to them, you can negotiate. Remind him how many years you've been a loyal customer. Being polite and friendly works, being a jerk does not.
The ultimate negotiating tactic is to explain your position politely to the store manager, and walk out.
I remember buying a car from a dealer. The dealer wouldn't agree to my price. He was adamant about it. So I got up, left, got in my car, started the engine, and backed out. The dealer came running out of the showroom and said he'd match my price.
Businessmen will always tell you that prices aren't negotiable. That is a tactic for rubes.
All of this is very nice--and irrelevant to the point under discussion.
Under the scenario that the Maryland law is outlawing, the richer customer who is being charged the higher price by the grocery store still finds the product to be worth it to them at the higher price. And since their time has value, and they're just grocery shopping, and they're rich and not trying to pinch pennies, they'll just buy the thing at the price the store is asking. There will be less consumer surplus for them, as I said, than there would be if the store were charging them the same price as the average middle class person--but it's highly doubtful that it will be worth their time to try to extract that extra consumer surplus from the store. That's why stores want to price discriminate in the first place--because they know the richer customers won't bother trying to haggle over price.