6th March 2003, 10:22 PM
You know though, now I do see why that company would do that. Having someone walking around with a "potentially offensive shirt" like that could have been viewed as something that would disturb other customers. They merely wanted to remove the offensive element.
Now then, that's just their viewpoint I'm stating. Here's why they are still morons. If they found it offensive, they shouldn't have allowed the stores to sell that shirt (the owner of the mall leases out the store space, they can of course do this). That's just the first problem. The second issue is that the company totally forgot that the scene actually calling the police and reporting a trespasser (for their reasoning, which again is irrelevent to the law, which is of course why I don't find this law related at all) would in fact be something that would hurt store image, doing a lot more damage than simply letting him go unbothered and then doing as they would regarding the store that sold the shirt.
Now then we reach why it's stupid that they would even bother getting upset over the content of the shirt. Do I find that shirt stupid? Yes of course. However, there wasn't any illegal content on the shirt, or things that are extremely offensive. It was a political statement, which is something stores, if they value profit, should not ever get involved in. They of course were perfectly within their rights to refuse service for any reason at all, but of course the reasons stores don't do that constantly is because it affects sales, like this most certainly will.
In other words, the store managers, or security guards, or company owners, or whoever made this decision are clearly morons. However, no rights were infringed upon here until the guy refused to leave private property.
Now then, that's just their viewpoint I'm stating. Here's why they are still morons. If they found it offensive, they shouldn't have allowed the stores to sell that shirt (the owner of the mall leases out the store space, they can of course do this). That's just the first problem. The second issue is that the company totally forgot that the scene actually calling the police and reporting a trespasser (for their reasoning, which again is irrelevent to the law, which is of course why I don't find this law related at all) would in fact be something that would hurt store image, doing a lot more damage than simply letting him go unbothered and then doing as they would regarding the store that sold the shirt.
Now then we reach why it's stupid that they would even bother getting upset over the content of the shirt. Do I find that shirt stupid? Yes of course. However, there wasn't any illegal content on the shirt, or things that are extremely offensive. It was a political statement, which is something stores, if they value profit, should not ever get involved in. They of course were perfectly within their rights to refuse service for any reason at all, but of course the reasons stores don't do that constantly is because it affects sales, like this most certainly will.
In other words, the store managers, or security guards, or company owners, or whoever made this decision are clearly morons. However, no rights were infringed upon here until the guy refused to leave private property.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)