A Beijing clothing shop put up a notice reading "No admittance for Chinese," triggering heated discussion online Wednesday, as law experts said the shop is suspected of discrimination. 

The Beijing Youth Daily on Tuesday found a notice reads "No admittance for Chinese (except employees)" on a shop's door on Yabao Road, Chaoyang district.

An employee at the store said that they only do business with foreigners and they tried to use the notice to stop Chinese peers from plagiarizing their clothing designs.

Another employee said that the notice has been there for nearly a week. It came after a foreign customer's purse was allegedly stolen by a Chinese customer. The customer claimed that the store and the thief were cooperating and demanded $5,000 in compensation, despite being shown surveillance footage.

"It's too radical," another store owner operating on Yabao Road told the Global Times. "However, some competitors do come to my store and plagiarize designs, which has forced me to reduce my prices," said the owner. 

Yabao Road is home to a famous wholesale marketplace that sells clothing and accessories to foreigners, especially to Russian-speaking customers.

Many slammed the post online, saying it insulted all Chinese people.

"The store's move violated consumer protection laws and may be discriminating against Chinese customers," said Liu Guofu, a law professor from the Beijing Institute of Technology.

"It went against the principles of equality and fairness and harmed our national pride," Liu Junhai, a law professor at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.

This was not the first time that Yabao Road said no to Chinese customers.

Local authorities required stores to make changes after notices like "No tours allowed" or "No entry unless invited" were posted by many stores in the market. However, the Russian text on the same notices read "Welcome," reported The Beijing Times in October 2003.