Free Republic

Philadelphia businesses are being forced to set up booby traps like hidden sprinkler systems to fend off drug users. Local activist Frank Rodriguez has revealed that business owners in the Kensington area of the city are having to devise tricks to keep addicts off their stoops. The neighborhood has become ground zero for the city's drug epidemic, and is frequently seen strewn with trash and addicts injecting drugs in the open. Speaking to Fox News, Rodriguez said: 'Businesses end up throwing soapy water on the ground just so it is wet and it is not a comfortable place to sit...

Visitors to Disney theme parks this summer are encountering something they haven’t seen in a while: elbow room. Travel analysts and advisers say traffic to Disney’s U.S. parks, and some rival parks, has slowed this summer. Data from a travel company that tracks line-waiting time at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., shows that the Independence Day weekend was one of the slowest in nearly a decade. Disney executives have said they have expected weaker earnings from their U.S. parks this year. The Orlando-area resort is even offering hotel discounts around Christmas, typically a peak period. Travel advisers and industry...

A Washington state-based grocery chain is under scrutiny for asking customers to donate to diversity, equity and inclusion “awareness” with some online critics lobbing criticism at the company. A screenshot obtained by Fox News Digital shows a checkout kiosk at Haggen Grocery Store that asks shoppers whether they want to donate $1, $3, $5 or another amount to “help advocate for DEI Awareness” when they checkout. Customers can also decline if they want, the screenshot shows. Haggen is owned by mega-company Albertsons. Behind the kiosk, an advertisement for the Haggen Foundation tells patrons that from June 14 through mid-August, they...

Customers are feeling “emotionally blackmailed” when being prompted to tip at self checkouts in restaurants and retail establishments, especially amid record-high inflation and less friendly customer service. Business owners say prompts to leave a tip at self-checkout can significantly increase gratuities for staff, but more and more customers are asking what exactly these tips are for, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

The Pizza Shop in Middlesbrough has had people in stitches over their sarcastic and sharp responses to unhappy customers on the popular takeaway appA pizza joint owner left customers stunned after their snappy comebacks to unhappy Just Eat customer. After The Pizza Shop in Middlesbrough received some bad reviews, the restaurant's boss took it into their hands to hit back at any negative comments. The Linethorpe Road takeaway has more than 2,700 reviews, with an overwhelming amount being positive and described the shop as being "spot on" or having "great service". However, as is often the case, opinions differed...

A Target worker put customers who leave stuff in aisles on blast in a viral TikTok video. The worker, known as Kaitlin Sonday (@kaitlinsondae) on TikTok, often posts about her job as a Target employee and has about 19,000 followers. In the video, Sonday shows a pair of frozen pizzas that a customer left in an aisle next to the bath bombs. As of Sunday, the video received about 290,000 views on TikTok.

Lists fictional names of customers buying Hunter's "art". Hilarious.

Amanda Schoch, ODNI Director of Strategic Communications: "This afternoon the DNI was notified by career intelligence officials that the Intelligence Community will not meet the December 18 deadline, set by Executive Order and Congress to submit the IC’s classified assessment on foreign threats to the 2020 U.S. elections. The IC has received relevant reporting since the election and a number of agencies have not finished coordinating on the product. The DNI is committed to providing this report to our customers expeditiously."

Time to reconnect with customers

"Our view was always, 'Let's just run a business.'" Today, former Walmart CEO Bill Simon would be in the minority. As more companies pick sides in the cultural debate, he -- like a lot of executives -- is having a hard time understanding which business these CEOs are in: advancing left-wing advocacy or their company's brand? Things have changed a lot over Bill Simon's career. In the retail business, he remembers, it used to be simple. "We'll sell to anybody. We'll try to stay out of the public eye on issues that can be confrontational." Fast-forward to today, when everything...

A south Palo Alto activist has been fired from her accounting job at Gryphon Stringed Instruments after chasing a man wearing a Make America Great Again cap out of Starbucks and then posting about the confrontation on Facebook. Rebecca Parker Mankey, 46, was fired on Tuesday (April 2), the day after she yelled at a man with a bushy gray beard named Victor who regularly visits the Starbucks at 361 California Ave. in Palo Alto wearing a red MAGA hat. Mankey didn’t return the Post’s requests for comment. “Anybody in Palo Alto know this freak?” Mankey asked in a widely...

<p>MARYSVILLE, Wash. — Authorities say two men were surrounded by customers with guns while attempting to steal tools from a Washington store.</p> <p>The Daily Herald reports the men, ages 22 and 23, allegedly took four nail guns, each worth more than $400, from the Coastal Farm & Ranch store Saturday in Marysville.</p>

MARYSVILLE — The plan was simple: Steal tools and pawn them for money. That’s what two men, 22 and 23, reportedly had in mind when they showed up to the Coastal Farm & Ranch store in Marysville on Saturday afternoon, according to a police report. They allegedly took four nail guns, each worth over $400, walked out of the store and got into a Honda Civic. They didn’t expect to be surrounded by about six customers with guns raised.

The Starbucks on Killeen’s Trimmier Road, near U.S. Highway 190/Interstate 14, was as busy as ever at 4 p.m. Saturday — the day before Christmas Eve. Perhaps it was customers buying gift cards and 12-ounce bags of ground coffee as last-minute gifts for family and friends, or maybe it was shoppers fueling up on caffeine to endure the final stretch of Christmas chores. Either way, Store Manager Jamal Smith hardly had time to talk, as the line of cars in the drive-thru wrapped around the building. Smith is used to the heavy traffic around his store. Being along Trimmier Road,...

Walmart is developing facial recognition technology so it can identify the shoppers who appear irritated or just generally unhappy, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Wednesday. The corporation reportedly plans on using the biometric data that it collects to ensure that potential customers who are displeased at any given moment are thoroughly and quickly accommodated for....

Macy’s was “inundated with complaints” from roughly 30,000 customers who are defending GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to TMZ. Macy’s decided not to carry Trump’s ties after he made comments during his official announcement speech about illegal immigration. Macy’s along with NBC, Univision, and NASCAR— among others — broke business ties with Trump after backlash from the media about his comments. The thousands of Macy’s customers have decided not to shop at the store anymore and are cutting up their Macy’s cards. Donald Trump responded on Twitter saying, “I am so happy that people are boycotting Macy’s.”

A confession: Many years ago, I was an ultra-left liberal, a Marxist, in fact. As a newly minted attorney at law in New York, I joined the ACLU and volunteered serve as one of their lawyers. About six weeks later, they asked me to represent an American Nazi accused of inciting to riot. I refused. They were mightily put off, horrified in fact. They remonstrated. “But he has a right to counsel.” I said, “Maybe so, but he doesn’t have a right to me. I’m protected by the Thirteenth Amendment.” (The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary...

FRESNO (KMJ) -- Investigators are now trying to find out who was responsible for a brawl at a Fresno DMV. The fight saw furniture being thrown around and people running for cover - in the DMV on Olive and Weber. One of the chairs thrown across the room even shattered a counter top. It was captured on internal surveillance cameras and on onlooker's cell phones. Gabrielle Forman told our news partner KMPH Fox 26 News she was only there to change the registration on a car.

New Obamacare signups for this year are only 1.9 million as most customers are re-enrolled AUTOMATICALLY and there's little chance of reaching the 13 million total Congress says the program needs The vast majority of the 6.4 million Americans enrolled in Obamacare coverage for 2015 through Healthcare.gov never clicked a mouse or made a phone call this year: They were re-enrolled on autopilot. Only 1.9 million signed up on their own, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said Tuesday. Yet even with this help in capturing customers – including reluctant ones – the Obama administration is far behind what...

Video at link