Free Republic

Sunday, about 100 people rallied in front of the mall to support Spivack and his right to free speech. He opened his Free Market Warrior kiosk last spring, selling such items as “Impeach Obama” bumper stickers and baby bibs that say, “My parents chose life. Thanks Mom and Dad!” Spivack said he's found other stores in the mall selling T shirts and other merchandise with offensive slogans and feels he's being targeted “purely for politic reasons.” Since the controversy arose, he said his business has picked up.......

According to the Nashville Gay Pride website, Home Depot gave over $5,000 to be a major sponsor of its 2009 Gay Pride Festival in June. But simply financing the event wasn't enough for the big box chain. Home Depot also signed on as a vendor, conducting kid's craft workshops for children via a special booth set up just for them. To this end, Home Depot is basically encouraging the attendance of children at events which openly expose them to transvestites, cross-dressers, and homosexual activities. Unfortunately, Home Depot's participation in the Nashville Pride Festival doesn't stand alone. It has also sponsored...

Impeach Obama? Conservative kiosk gets booted from Concord Mills By Beth Shayne Newschannel 36 Posted: Wednesday, Jul. 22, 2009 CONCORD "Impeach Obama." "Al Qaeda's favorite days: 9/11/01 and 11/04/08." "Work Harder. Obama needs the money." The bumper stickers and posters sold at "Free Market Warrior" at Concord Mills are meant to be "biting," the kiosk's owner Loren Spivack said. At least one passerby found them racist and bigoted, and took time to tell the mall in a letter and a letter to the editor of the Charlotte Observer. Whatever your opinion, the fact is this: At the end of July,...

July 23, 2009 Conservative kiosk not allowed at mall Jim Paul One of major mall operators in America seems to be aligning itself with the Democrats. Apparently the Simon Property Group has again bowed to the transparent complaints of a single person to shut down a conservative memorabilia peddler due solely to the political slant of the items sold. As reported by BETH SHAYNE / WCNC.com: The owner of the mall group, Mel Simon, has been a generous contributor to Democratic causes and politicians, including Barack Obama. Spivack [owner of the kiosk in question] thinks the decision about his lease...

It's been decades since retailers had it so rough, with more than 75 national and regional chains filing for bankruptcy and countless local shops shutting their doors. Yet new stores are still opening all over the country — and all over Silicon Valley. With so many retailers in distress, it doesn't seem very savvy to hang out an "Open for Business" sign. Yet experts say that with the right plan, it actually makes sense to open a new store in the middle of a recession. This spring and summer, Nordstrom Rack opened stores in Oakridge mall and East Palo Alto,...

Wal-Mart has just changed the game with respect to environmental issues. Now it doesn't matter whether Congress' new cap-and-trade law meets all its promises, nor whether the G-8 leaders dithered rather than acted on environmental issues. Wal-Mart's unilateral decision to put its purchasing and communication power behind going green also shows that a single company using its unique clout can accelerate public action to reduce greenhouse gases and reverse climate change. By rolling out an environmental labelling program disclosing to consumers the environmental costs of making products sold at Wal-Mart, the $401 billion retail behemoth has transformed green standards from...

CHICAGO — Does hardware have a softer side? Home Depot thinks so. It is testing a warm-and-fuzzy approach to selling hammers, lighting and garage doors that is targeted at female shoppers. Responding to long-time criticism that its warehouse environment was simply too rough for many women, the nation's largest do-it-yourself retailer is set to open the two test stores, called Home Depot Design Centers, later this month in Charlotte, N.C., and Concord, Calif. They're fashioned as a hybrid of the typical Home Depot (HD) store and its Expo stores, the retailer's upscale design-studio concept. Jason Feldman, the company's senior director...

by OneVike On Thursday evening of July 16, 2009 @ 6:30pm in the City Council Chambers at 421 Main Street, a group of representatives from Wal-Mart will come before the Chico Planning Commission for approval on a new Supercenter to be built in Chico. They promise to create almost new jobs for those who live in and around Chico. So I did my civic duty and informed you of the meeting, now while I will tell you why I am against it. I originally started writing this article in favor of Wal-Mart and their new Superstore. However as I...

MILL VALLEY, Calif. (KCBS) -- Once a darling of the Marin County good life, high-end garden retailer Smith and Hawken will go out of business by the end of the year. Liquidation is already underway at the company's six Bay Area stores.

On Tuesday the CEO of Wal-Mart, long the bête noire of the American left, issued a joint statement with SEIU head Andy Stern and Center for American Progress President John Podesta, two close allies of Barack Obama, supporting the administration's health reform efforts. The letter called for bipartisan reforms that include an employer mandate to purchase health insurance for their employees. An odd alliance? Maybe. But when two camps eye the same goal for separate reasons, they can become unlikely bedfellows. For the Obama administration, this announcement comes at a particularly convenient time. The president's health reform effort has hit...

Matthew Yglesias proudly announces that his employer the liberal thinktank Center for American Progress has convinced Wal-Mart (WMT) to support a law that would legally obligate employers to pay for their employees' health insurance. The Center for American Progress, the Service Employees International Union, and Wal-Mart joined forces today to release a letter (PDF) endorsing the dual ideas of an employer mandate to provide health insurance and “triggers” to automatically reduce costs if health care spending gets too high (more on that here). The highly ideological behavior of the business community, and high degree of class solidarity exhibited by the...

For years, supermarkets, drugstores and discount retailers packed their shelves with an ever-expanding array of products in different brands, sizes, colors, flavors, fragrances and prices. Now, though, they believe less is more. Pharmacy chain Walgreen Co. is cutting the types of superglues it carries to 11 from 25. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has decided that 24 different tape measures is 20 too many. Kroger Co. has tested stripping out about 30% of its cereal varieties. In the next year or so, these and a few of the other largest retailers are expected to slice the assortment of products in their stores...

Mall data is UGLY! Last week we pointed you to some analysis done by David Bodamer at Retail Traffic Magazine, which showed that a recent mall transaction valued the property as low as 50% below its 2007 peak. The Buffalo mall sale is just a single datapoint, but it gives a clue as to how bad the market is for commercial/retail property. Well, Bodamer's got more data on the Buffalo market, and it turns out his initial analysis may have been optimistic. That worst-case 50% decline may actually be more like 60% I’ve gotten Real Capital Analytic’s data on Buffalo,...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is supposed to be the retail winner in a depression or recession as more and more consumers are forced to shop at the world’s largest retailer whether they want to or not. There is no arguing about the notion that consumers can save money if they buy at Wal-Mart. But several key issues have been happening here, and the company is at risk of having one of the worst charts of all current Dow Jones Industrial Average members.

NEW YORK – Clothing retailer Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc. filed on Wednesday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection, the latest retail casualty of the recession. It said CCMP Capital Advisors LLC has bid for its assets. Other buyers may also make bids while the company is under court protection.

Oakland, CA (AHN) - Attorney General Jerry Brown charged discount retailer Target on Monday with illegally dumping of hazardous wastes, while announcing a settlement with rival Kmart over similar charges. Brown was joined in filing the charges by 20 district attorneys around the state and the city attorney of Los Angeles. In a statement, the attorney general said the charges resulted from an investigation that began in March 2006 into how Target disposed of various waste products and toxic chemicals. The statement cited numerous instances in which Target showed "willful disregard" of California's waste disposal regulations, one as recent as...

Slight April gain over March gives weak signal for peak season Container volumes at U.S. ports edged up in April compared to March, but remained well below the volumes recorded in April 2008, according to the monthly Port Tracker published by the National Retail Federation and IHS Global Insight. The second half of 2009 appears to be trending the same way the first half progressed, with containerized imports creeping up compared to the month before, but down noticeably from the same month last year. It therefore looks like the back-to-school shopping season this summer, traditionally the second busiest period on...

The buzz this week has been that Eddie Bauer Holdings is close to filing for bankruptcy if it can’t sell itself or restructure. Liquidation firms have reportedly been sizing up the apparel cataloger/retailer for weeks, including Hilco Consumer Capital and Gordon Brothers—the firms that bought Sharper Image out of bankruptcy in May 2008. Eddie Bauer, which recorded a net loss of $165.5 million for fiscal year 2008, said in March it has $193 million in outstanding debt, and that it was trying to amend the loan terms. The Bellevue, WA-based company generated $971.3 million in sales for fiscal 2008, down...

The princess industry has been booming in the past few years -- not just the Disney dolls and scratchy toy-store ball gowns that are a rite of passage in most American girlhoods, but a brazen new breed of princess products that target a far wider age range and tap into less seemly attitudes. The hot-pink, leopard-print princess backpacks, T-shirts, purses and bedspreads that girls are now buying (or, rather, their parents are buying for them) have little to do with indulging sweet princess fantasies and everything to do with catering to over-indulged princess egos. [Taste] Sara Schwartz Take the popular...

Washington, June 11 - May retail sales rose 0.5% as expected, but most of this was due to a 3.6% increase in gas station sales, the Commerce Department reported today. Also contributing was a 0.5% sales increase at auto and parts dealers, a 1.3% increase at building material stores, and a 0.7% increase at health and personal care stores. Retail sales excluding autos rose 0.5%, more than the 0.2% economists expected. Sales excluding gasoline rose just 0.2%. Commerce also upwardly revised April sales to a 0.2% decline from the 0.4% drop it first reported. April sales ex-autos was revised up...

In today's knee-jerk, politically-reactive climate, it's rare to find a company that is willing to baldly state its political beliefs. This is particularly true in the world of fast food, where patrons range across the political spectrum and a misplaced word or ill-conceived statement could easily spell the end of business. In this context, even companies that are openly religious, like Chik-Fil-A tend to downplay their affiliations. Things are a little different at Burger King, at least in Memphis. While estimates vary depending upon the report, between 2 and 10 BK restaurants in the area recently put up billboard signs...

Prominent Vietnam veterans and their families are appalled by an advertisement for a major local mall that shows a woman in front of a wall that strongly resembles the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, with the names of the center’s stores appearing instead of the names of the war dead. Tysons Corner Center reacted quickly to condemnation from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and ordered the immediate removal of 440 of the ads from the Metrorail cars where they have been posted, mall spokeswoman Allison Fischer said Tuesday afternoon. The Tysons ad features a black granite wall engraved with a list of...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opens about 150 new or expanded stores in the U.S. in 2009, the company expects to hire about 22,000 people for new positions. Those positions include plenty of cashiers and stock clerks, but the world’s largest retailer will also be adding store managers, pharmacists and personnel workers. Wal-Mart is holding its annual shareholders meeting on Friday, and employees from its stores around the world are spending the week in Bentonville at company headquarters. Unlike many retailers, Wal-Mart has managed to keep sales growing since the recession began in late 2007, helped greatly by...

Bentonville, AR (AHN) - Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), the world's largest retailer, has committed to add at least 22,000 jobs in the United States in 2009 to staff new or expanded stores.The news is going to boost investor confidence in the sector as the retailers have been hit hard by sliding consumer spending, which is related to increasing unemployment rate. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company's announcement came ahead of its annual meeting on Thursday. "During this difficult economic time, we're proud to be able to create quality jobs for thousands of Americans this year," Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said in...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc employees could be shouting the retailer's corporate cheer with renewed vigor at this year's annual meeting. Thousands of employees from across the globe will descend upon Fayetteville, Arkansas for the retailer's June 5 annual meeting. After years of being hounded by union-backed critic groups, politicians and competitors, employees can revel in the fact that their employer has gotten its grove back and is gaining market share as the worldwide economic downturn drives frugal shoppers into its stores. Investors are eager for more gains, and Wal-Mart, under newly installed CEO Mike Duke, is focused on delivering them by...

The wife of the neighbor and I had a discussion while shopping in town today. She had extensive experience in retail sales, until she finished college and got a degree in dental hygiene (which she does not currently use, being a stay-at-home mother). franksolich has had some experience in retail sales, although being deaf, franksolich and retail sales are not a good mix. We talked about last-minute customers, those sorts of rush into a place right at closing time, when the employees just wish to lock the doors and go home. For the record, neither of us has been guilty...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Malls, those ubiquitous shopping meccas that sprang up in the 1950s, are dwindling in number, with many struggling properties reduced to largely vacant shells. On the low-income east side of Charlotte, N.C., the 1.1-million-square-foot Eastland Mall recently lost a slew of key tenants, including a Dillard's and, next month, a Sears. Sales per square foot at the venue fell to $210 in 2008 from $288 in 2001. The Metcalf South Shopping Center in Overland Park, Kan., is languishing after plans to redevelop it into an open-air shopping district fizzled. The stretch of shops that connects two largest...

Is this the first official allegation of predatory lending in the commercial real estate space? A reader passes on a recently filed lawsuit brought by a Long Island retail outlet developer against the institutions that loaned him money. Among the defendants: LaSalle Bank, Wells Fargo and Principal Life Insurance Company (uh-oh). What's amazing is how much it reads like a typical case of so-called predatory lending. The plaintiff, MASS OP LLC is swimming along with a manageable $40 million loan for his retail outlet at 5500 Sunrise Hwy in Long Island with no problem making payments. Then all of the...

Consumers went away in March, and stayed away in April. Anyone looking for further validation that the economy is on the mend didn't find it in the April U.S. retail sales numbers out of the Commerce Department this morning. Sales fell 0.4% from the prior month, far exceeding the economist consensus expectation of 0.1%. This is the second month in a row of declining sales. Sales in March were revised down, decreasing 1.3% instead of 1.2%. That means the turn around from January and February, when sales rose, was far sharper than earlier reported. Sales had fallen for the last...

While companies across the country are downsizing, some in the fashion world have decided that it's time for a bit of upsizing. This spring, the cheap chic emporiums, Target and Forever 21, will launch plus-size lines for teenagers. Forever 21's line, Faith 21, will have sizes ranging from XL-2X, while Target's Pure Energy line will go up to a size 30. It's about time, said several shoppers scouring the crowded racks of a Forever 21 branch in downtown Manhattan, New York, one recent afternoon. "I would love to be able to shop in one store with my friends that are...

Retailing wonder-woman Karen Katz was featured as a "magical thinker" in the Sept. 21, 2007, edition of Time magazine. The Neiman Marcus president and CEO said that the number of U.S. households worth more than $5 million was greater than ever before, and consumers had an increased appetite for all things luxe. "Many other retailers have jumped on the luxury bandwagon, wanting to get their piece of the action. It's forced us to say, 'Where do we go?' And we're kind of moving up," Katz told Time. "We've decided there's this category we've named 'high luxury.' It's even more luxurious,...

General Growth Properties Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy protection to reorganize. General Growth listed $29.5 billion in total assets and about $27.3 billion of debts in its bankruptcy petition, making it the largest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history. Chicago-based General Growth (NYSE: GGP), whose shopping mall holdings include Coronado Center, New Mexico's largest enclosed mall, said in an announcement Thursday that it had sought bankruptcy protection only after being unable to refinance or extend maturing debt. The company said all day-to-day operations and business of its shopping malls would continue as usual while it reorganizes. General...

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman didn't have a column in yesterday's paper. Was it because the company that his wife's fortune is invested in went bankrupt last week, and he's too sad to type? General Growth Properties filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, which is notable because it's one of the nation's largest mall operators, with 200 malls in 44 states—the Times called the company's failure "one of the biggest commercial real estate collapses in United States history." It's also notable because Friedman's wife, Ann Bucksbaum Friedman, is an heir to the family that founded GGP, and her family still...

Exxon Mobil has unseated Wal-Mart Stores to top the 2009 Fortune 500 list after a year the magazine called the worst ever for the country’s 500 largest publicly traded companies.

CBS) The recession has already taken its toll on retailers across the country. Now shopping malls themselves are in big trouble. One of the largest mall owners in this country filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Thursday. General Growth Properties, which owns more than 200 malls, is more than $27 billion in debt - another sign that the meltdown in residential real estate is now spreading to the commercial sector as well, as CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports. From New York's South Street Seaport, to the 100-store Fanieul Hall in Boston, to the Lincolnshire Mall in Chicago, shoppers are apparently...

General Growth Properties, owner of premier malls such as Tysons Galleria in McLean, filed the largest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history Thursday, but analysts say the move is not a sign of retail Armageddon. General Growth, like many homeowners, paid top dollar in a rush to buy properties earlier in the decade and now finds itself awash in debt with its asset values shrinking.

Retail sales tumbled in March as job losses and tight credit left consumers cautious and constrained, damping hopes for a rapid economic turnaround. After some improvement earlier this year from a dismal autumn, retail sales in March fell 1.1% from February, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Credit turmoil continued to hit automobile sales especially hard, but the declines also came in most major categories, from appliances to furniture to clothing stores. Retail sales, a broad tally that also includes food services, were down more than 9% from the same month a year ago. The decline signaled that consumer spending, which...

State and local sales-tax revenue fell more sharply in the fourth quarter of 2008 than at any time in the past half century, and has continued to erode through the beginning of 2009, according to a report released Tuesday. The report by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York underscores how swiftly the consumer slowdown has eaten into municipal budgets. . . . State and local sales taxes, among the largest sources of revenue for municipalities, fell 6.1% in the fourth quarter of last year, as consumers bought fewer clothes, ate out less...

<p>WASHINGTON--Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell in March, snapping two months of increases, as motor vehicle and electronic good purchases declined, according to a government report on Tuesday that indicated subdued consumer spending amid rising unemployment.</p> <p>The Commerce Department said total retail sales dropped 1.1% after rising by a revised 0.3% in February, previously reported as a 0.1% fall.</p>

If you've ever arrived home safely from a shopping spree, thank a mall cop. Tom Walton of AlliedBarton Security Services, one of the nation's largest providers of mall security professionals, complains that his people aren't getting any respect from Hollywood filmmakers who increasingly portray them as dorks, slackers and wannabe police officers. "These hard-working, highly trained men and women are our country's first responders who have a wide range of skills — from the sensitivity to deal with lost children to the ability to address criminal activity," Walton wrote in an article carried in several publications. As if malls didn't...

Californians have started many national trends, from surfing to solar energy, but we should be ashamed of the newest fad: class-action lawsuits against retailers asking for ZIP-codes. Like other states, California has passed laws prohibiting businesses from requesting or requiring "personal identification information" while accepting a credit-card payment. Some attorneys are filing class actions against retailers alleging that retailers can't ask customers for any information at the time of a credit-card transaction - even ZIPcodes - without breaking the law. A class-action lawsuit was filed against Old Navy challenging this very practice. Even when customers can't prove they were harmed,...

You've probably heard critics claiming Uncle Sam is printing money like it's going out of style. Now, as CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports, some towns are getting into the act since their communities were granted a license to print money. At a time when money's tighter than ever in Ithaca, New York, they're now printing they're own. They call their funny money "Ithaca Hours." In Pittsboro, North Carolina, it's much the same. Local businesses are distributing their own bizzaro dinero called, "The Plenty." "Bring nine dollars to the bank and you get 10 Plenty's. You're increasing your local purchasing power...

MILAN—On the heels of a 17.6 percent drop in net income in 2008, Luxottica Group is enacting a number of cost-cutting measures, including store closings, manufacturing reductions and cuts in advertising. The company announced in mid-March it is closing 117 stores in North America, and will franchise 56 additional Pearle Vision locations by year-end. Another 110 retail units are also “under review,” according to Andrea Guerra, Luxottica’s chief executive officer. Overall, the company plans a 2 percent to 3 percent reduction in its global store count. On the wholesale side, Luxottica will reduce its eyewear manufacturing volume by 15 percent—production...

When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opened a Supercenter in suburban Country Club Hills in 2006, Karen Talchik changed her shopping routine. With a Wal-Mart supermarket near her house, the Oak Forest teacher abandoned her old grocery standby. She said the service sometimes isn't as good at Wal-Mart—the lines at the deli and checkout counters can be longer than she was used to—but the prices can't be beat. "I stopped going to Jewel," Talchik said. While Wal-Mart has been in the spotlight for trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to plant its flag in the city of Chicago, the behemoth has been quietly building its...

Three major retailers on Saturday laid out broad details of an alternative proposal they hope will fend off a deadlock over a hotly contested bill making it easier for workers to unionize. Starbucks Corp., Whole Foods Market Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. are opposed to portions of the labor-friendly Employee Free Choice Act, which would take away the right of employers to demand secret-ballot elections by workers before unions could be formed. Under the legislation, unions could gain representation if a majority of workers sign cards authorizing it. Still, the companies say they recognize that simply opposing the bill might...

Three big retailers are expected to back an alternative proposal next week on a hotly contested bill that would make it easier to unionize workplaces, a move some experts said would bolster the legislation's chance of passage. Costco Wholesale Corp., Starbucks Corp. and Whole Foods Market Inc. are supporting the alternative proposal, according to someone familiar with the effort. Ray Krupin, a management labor lawyer in Washington said the most likely compromise would allow employees to unionize if 70% of them sign union-authorization cards, as opposed to 50% as currently proposed in the Employee Free Choice Act.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc is awarding approximately $2 billion to its U.S. hourly employees through financial incentives, including handing out $933.6 million in bonuses on Thursday, after the world's largest retailer gained market share amid a recession. In a memo to Wal-Mart employees obtained by Reuters, Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke said the retailer is awarding roughly $2 billion to U.S. hourly employees, which includes $933.6 million in bonuses, $788.8 million in profit sharing and 401(k) contributions, millions of dollars in merchandise discounts, and contributions to its employee stock purchase plan. "While economic challenges forced others to step back, we moved forward,"...

Photographer Brian Ulrich's images explore the haunted shells of America's devastated retail landscape.

Sales at the nation's retailers fell slightly less than expected in February, suggesting that the economic deceleration may at least be slowing, according to a government report on Thursday. The Commerce Department said retail sales declined 0.1 percent from January, better than the 0.5 percent drop that economists had expected, but nonetheless returning to negative territory after a surprise 1.8 percent gain in January. Not including automobiles, which dragged down the overall number, sales ticked up 0.7 percent after a 1.6 percent gain in January. Retailing analysts and economists said that sales in February were helped by a decline in...

Hoping to scoop up some last-minute deals from the soon-to-be-defunct retailer? Better hurry up, because Circuit City's final weekend is nigh. Just remember: buyer beware. The liquidators behind the massive Circuit City fire sale have announced that the remaining 567 stores will close for good on Sunday, March 8, at the end of the business day. So far, liquidators have sold off more than $1 billion in Circuit City's remaining inventory, according to CrunchGear, with "deeper discounts" expected through the final days. Those who've gone to take a long, last look at the remaining, tattered Circuit City stores have reported...