So, I used to work at a dive shop. They were pretty good about long hoses and bpws. They had jackets and short hoses in rental, and a few DIR setups. In class, they'd explain it to students and give them options. When asked, they'd tell vacation-only divers that they should learn in short hoses and a jacket because it's what most places rented. Most students tried both. Almost everyone that bought gear got a more DIR setup, due to the owner's bias. But if someone wanted the biggest, puffiest jacket in the store, fit the customer with a smile, and talk about pros and cons of different jackets without (much) DIR bias. I'll say that I'm not the biggest fan of that shop, and they're far from the best I've dealt with. But even they were tons better than what you are dealing with. If an Internet divert came in, they'd have an open and honest discussion about it. They'd discuss pros and cons and explain why they do what they do.
The shop near my house now (I lived literally less than a block away for a year) sucks. The owner sucks. He told me anyone diving sidemount was an incompetent, ignorant, lazy moron following Internet fads that deserved to die. Anyone diving a canister light in a cave was even worse, and was begging for death. He told me there's only one visual inspection sticker you can legally full tanks according to, and that filling tanks with banked 32% required o2 cleaning, legally. He said anyone diving a drysuit in Florida caves was a pansy and didn't deserve to be diving. He also claimed a SAC of well below 0.2 while weighing closer to 350lbs. All of this, and he encouraged his dive master candidate (no cave training) to take 10 AWFUL divers to the piano room in Ginnie with three lights amongst them. I won't even get air fills through them any more. A buddy and I are setting up a fill station to completely avoid him permanently.
My LDS is over 6 hours away and gets nearly all of my business. The business they don't get, they're not upset about. Heck, they've pointed me to other dealers with better availability of what I want.
My point? Regardless of what his personal issues or beliefs are or were, that's absolutely an unacceptable way to treat a customer. Run. Warn others.