The frenzied annual search for the perfect Black Friday bargain turned ugly, as retail's midnight madness descended into madness of another sort. Outside a Walmart in San Leandro, one shopper who tried fighting off would-be robbers in the store's parking lot ended up fighting for his life in an East Bay hospital after being shot during the struggle.
At a Walmart in Southern California, a woman -- who according to witnesses had brought along two children -- used pepper spray on at least 10 shoppers to make sure she got the new Xbox 360 she was after. And at yet another of the retail giant's stores near its headquarters in Arkansas, a "waffle riot" broke out when waffle irons went on sale for $2, causing one woman to nearly lose her pants during the melee.
It was the first truly Pitch Black Friday since 2008, when a Walmart employee on New York's Long Island was trampled to death by predawn shoppers. And while most bargain hunters concluded their day without violence -- except possibly to their credit card statements -- the mayhem in California raised fears anew that holiday shopping is becoming a blood sport.
"It's almost like caveman hunting," said Kit Yarrow, a consumer research psychologist who teaches at Golden Gate University. "If you look at the prehistoric parts of our brain, we're prewired to believe in the wisdom of the crowd. When we see everybody else wanting something, we want it even more. That knowledge that only the stronges.
are going to be able to get the bargain is what causes that desperation people feel. That makes people muscle up a little bit, unfortunately."
In San Leandro, the muscle came out of the dark at 1:50 a.m., when a group of shoppers walking to their car were confronted by at least four people who tried to rob them, said San Leandro police Sgt. Mike Sobek. The victims fought with the assailants to protect their purchases, and during the struggle one of the robbers pulled out a gun and shot the victim -- a man in his 20s, according to police.
An XBox 360. Which means in all likelihood, this woman is a mother with kids. What an excellent example to set for them! The woman was waiting in line at Walmart in Los Angeles, and when the doors opened at 10, she burst into the store and made a bee line for electronics. As soon as a clerk removed the plastic to the XBoxes, which were half price, she let loose her pepper spray, injuring a crowd of about 20 other shoppers, including children! What has our world come to if we would risk blinding children for the sake of a video game. We are a seriously messed up people, my fellow Earthlings.
And the worst of it is ... she's still OUT there. Stalking, shopping, and ready to fire at you if you reach for that thing SHE had her eye on first. The pepper spraying incident caused such commotion that the woman was able to grab her video game, make it to the cash register, and leave the store with her prize in hand. Police think they got a good look at her on surveillance cameras so it's only a matter of time before they nab the insane shopper and charge her with assault. Merry Christmas to her!
All for a half-price sale that saves her about $100? Maybe $200? Stories like this make me feel so much better about my choice to just stay home gorging myself on leftover pumpkin pie, waiting to order online a week before Christmas, and paying full price and exhorbitant shipping.
Arresting people for assaults, beatings and robberies doesn’t bring money back to police departments, but drug cases do in a couple of ways. First, police departments across the country compete for a pool of federal anti-drug grants. The more arrests and drug seizures a department can claim, the stronger its application for those grants.
“The availability of huge federal anti-drug grants incentivizes departments to pay for SWAT team armor and weapons, and leads our police officers to abandon real crime victims in our communities in favor of ratcheting up their drug arrest stats,” said former Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing. Downing is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an advocacy group of cops and prosecutors who are calling for an end to the drug war.
Arresting people for assaults, beatings and robberies doesn’t bring money back to police departments, but drug cases do in a couple of ways. First, police departments across the country compete for a pool of federal anti-drug grants. The more arrests and drug seizures a department can claim, the stronger its application for those grants.
“The availability of huge federal anti-drug grants incentives departments to pay for SWAT team armor and weapons, and leads our police officers to abandon real crime victims in our communities in favor of ratcheting up their drug arrest stats,” said former Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing. Downing is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an advocacy group of cops and prosecutors who are calling for an end to the drug war.
“When our cops are focused on executing large-scale, constitutionally questionable raids at the slightest hint that a small-time pot dealer is at work, real police work preventing and investigating crimes like robberies and rapes falls by the wayside.
Morgan Drug Store in northern Utah may be a model for turning over more liquor sales to private contractors.
Since 1935, the Morgan City pharmacy has been selling alcohol in a cordoned-off section of the store that has its own counter, cash register and clerk. The so-called liquor package agency permit was granted three months after then-Gov. Henry Blood signed HB 41, ending Prohibition’s 18-year “long dry rule” in Utah.
On Wednesday, Bonneville Research consultant Bob Springmeyer told the Business and Labor Interim Committee that the state could save money and improve efficiencies if more package agencies such as the Morgan Drug Store were created.
The presentation drew a mixed response.
Package agencies are different from larger state-owned stores in that they are privately run outlets in small towns and resorts. Monthly payments from the state to the operators are based on sales volumes. But the state should look at expanding the system to urban areas, allowing grocery stores to sell all types of liquor in a similar, private-contractor arrangement, said Springmeyer.
While the state has annual sales of more than $300 million, Bob Springmeyer, president of Bonneville Research, said that allowing privately owned liquor stores at grocery stores would boost that revenue. Bonneville was hired by the Legislature to provide recommendations for improving the retail operations of the state's liquor agency.
Liquor and wine would not be sold in the actual grocery store, and Springmeyer said that the low-alcohol beer could also be taken off grocery store shelves and moved into the separate liquor store.
"We've never thought it appropriate in the state of Utah to have alcohol sold in the grocery stores next to apple juice and produce," Springmeyer said.
Other recommendations made by Springmeyer's company were giving stores more flexibility to set hours that can accommodate peak traffic times, consolidating some stores paying store employees more money to reduce training costs.
Lawmakers are expected to make significant changes to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control during next year's legislative session. A recent audit revealed years of mismanagement and a former director was forced to resign earlier this year after it was discovered that a company owned by his son had ongoing contracts with the agency for warehouse supplies.
Among the proposals that will likely be floated is the privatization of liquor stores, although the state would likely retain the existing monopoly on distribution. Historically, Utah legislators — a strong majority of which are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which prohibits alcohol consumption — have been opposed to loosening laws pertaining to the retail sale of liquor.
NEW YORK – There is no place in the U.S. more expensive to smoke than New York City, where the taxes alone will set you back $5.85 per pack. Yet, addicts who visit Island Smokes, a "roll-your-own" cigarette shop in Chinatown, can walk out with an entire 10-pack carton for under $40, thanks to a yawning tax loophole that officials in several states are now trying to close.The store is one of a growing number around the country that have come under fire over their use of high-speed cigarette rolling machines that function as miniature factories, and can package loose tobacco and rolling papers into neatly formed cigarettes, sometimes in just a few minutes.
The secret to Island's low prices is simple: Even though patrons leave carrying cartons that look very much like the Marlboros or Newports, the store charges taxes at the rate set for loose tobacco, which is just a fraction of what is charged for a commercially made pack.
Customers select a blend of tobacco leaves, intended to mirror the flavor of their regular brand. Then they feed the tobacco and some paper tubes into the machines, and return to the counter with the finished product to ring up the purchase.
The savings come at every level. Many stores sell customers loose pipe tobacco, which is taxed by the federal government at $2.80 per pound (450 grams), compared with $25 per pound for tobacco made for cigarettes. The shops don't pay into the cigarette manufacturer trust fund, intended to reimburse government health programs for the cost of treating smoking-related illness. And the packs produced by "roll-your-own" shops are generally also being sold without local tax stamps, which in New York include a $1.50 city tax and a $4.35 state tax.
New York City's legal department filed a lawsuit against Island Smokes on Nov. 14 arguing that the company's Manhattan store and another on Staten Island are engaging in blatant tax evasion.
Every package of cigarettes sold in the state, the suit argues, must bear a New York tax stamp. Businesses that sell unstamped cigarettes are violating both local law and the federal Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act, city lawyers said. The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, also accused the store of violating a state law requiring cigarettes to meet fire safety standards.
"By selling illegally low-priced cigarettes, defendants not only interfere with the collection of city cigarette taxes, they also impair the city's smoking cessation programs and impair individual efforts at smoking reduction, thereby imposing higher health care costs on the city and injuring public health," the complaint says.
Each pack contains 20 cigarettes and sells for about $13 in New York City after taxes are added. That compares with the national average in 2010 of $4.80 a pack, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A pack from Island Smokes can cost less than $4 a pack.
Everything about the business is legal, precisely because the company is neither selling cigarettes, nor manufacturing them, said Jonathan Behrins, a lawyer for Island Smokes. It simply is selling loose tobacco and tubes, he said, and giving customers access to the rolling machines to make the cigarettes themselves.
"What's the harm?" he said. "They are not selling unstamped cigarettes."
Behrins said the business, whose owners include a New York City police captain, opened in April. It has developed a clientele of people who are trying to save money and don't mind spending some time at the machines rolling their own product.
"It's a certain demographic that rolls their own. They don't really want to be bothered with Bloomberg reaching into their pockets," he said.
He likened the operation to a brew-your-own-beer store and chafed at the idea that it might cost the city substantial tax revenue. Some smoke shops use roll-your-own machines that can churn out a carton of 200 cigarettes in eight minutes, but Behrins said Island's machines are far slower. City investigators said it took them about 45 minutes to make one carton.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Aaron Schmidt seemed to have disappeared. The University of South Dakota freshman wasn’t responding to emails or cellphone messages, and his family hadn’t heard from him in days. It wasn’t until police were called that a clue turned up: a credit card purchase for a bus ticket to New York City.
Turns out, the 18-year-old had boarded a bus in eastern Nebraska — a mere $40 in his pocket — with plans to join Occupy Wall Street protesters in the city where the movement began. His father and uncle flew to New York from their homes in Wisconsin, and began handing out fliers with his photo to protesters.
Clue turned up: a credit card purchase for a bus ticket to New York City.
Turns out, the 18-year-old had boarded a bus with plans to join the city’s Occupy Wall Street protesters. He had a mere $40 and no sleeping bag.
Schmidt eventually responded to a relative’s text message, and he met up with his father and uncle who had flown to New York from Wisconsin to look for him.
Schmidt says he didn’t think he needed to let anyone know about his plans and wanted to see what it was like in the heart of the movement.
