O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas

17 Replies to “O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas”

1. Isn’t doing this an insult to the community by implying that they are thieves? Does Target take less profit on these items due to the cost of the containments, or do they pass the added costs along to the community? Is target doing the same thing is upscale neighborhoods?

   1. RAYCISS!!!

   2. That Target is in an upscale community, and no one there is insulted because crazy homeless drug addicts have so obviously made a complete mess of the area. The last time I visited that store, two addicts were fighting in one of the washrooms. The costs that you mention are shared by Target and the customers who don’t steal.

2. Give the cities the Consumers Distributing shopping experience they deserve.

3. Time to eliminate traditional stores entirely.

   Everything you need can be provided by the state through an armored vending machine.

   Just scan your implanted chip

   1. Yeah, that’ll be utopia, Bunnylicker19, so long as you keep your virtue-signaling score at approved levels.

      Oh, and don’t forget that before you can start a transaction, you have to speak the passphrase into the microphone; “All hail our Mother State. I am a loyal vassal who will sacrifice anything for the Motherland and obey every edict of our Glorious Leaders.

      THEN you can push the button for your 40-gram ration of soylent green.

4. When I was a kid way back in the middle of the last century, there were lots of little general stores that were left over from the early days of settlements. Remember, when early settlement was happening, people were a whole lot more honest than we find today. We think.
   Many of these little general stores had the customers walk in the middle of the store where they were separated from the merchandise by glass fronted counters. Behind the counters was a walking space where the staff picked your merchandise off the shelves or out of the counter, and that was that. Write it down on a bill that had carbon paper for a duplicate, add it up either manually or with a hand-cranked adding machine, and that was that.
   Target is just going back in time.

5. They’ll sue when the cut themselves breaking the glass to shoplift.

6. I was in Japan about 30 years ago and we went to a bar for a drink. The company I worked for had an open bottle of very expensive booze on a table and you just walked over and grabbed it. Once empty, a representative of the company went to the bar and bought another one. Anyone in the company could take a drink, at any time. Complete honor system. I asked if they were worried someone would take it and they looked at me like I had just crawled out of the sewer. Japan? Meet San Francisco.

7. Anyone here shop at Lee Valley? Pick your item off the computer, print it out and take it to an attendant behind the counter. They go to the warehouse and you meet them at the checkout. That’s how its been since opening here in Saskatoon.

   1. It’s been a while since I shopped at Lee Valley but in Toronto I remember you wrote your order down on a paper pad, tore it off and showed it to the clerk. That would have been a dozen or so years ago – times have changed.

   2. I’ve always thought the Lee Valley method was a little weird. Old hardware store model? Why? If you go to Busy Bee or Princess Auto, everything is out in the front for you to look at and pick up yourself.

      But, if shoplifting is going to be a problem, the Lee Valley model is the way to go. Staff intensive though.

      I would say that companies like Target will either end up like a massive vending machine with a showroom where people can see the goods through inch-thick Lexan panels, or they’ll just close.

      Or possibly the cops will start busting shoplifters again, as an outside third option.

8. As alluded to above the new paradigm will be similar to the gas stations: swipe your credit card, get your approved maximum and start ordering the items that will then be delivered to you while your card is charged up to the maximum daily limit. No more gas and dash.

9. I stopped going to the Concord, CA Home Depot … because everything I need is locked up behind metal grates. Need a $15 tape measure? You need an associate with the right key, and that associate has to walk you to a cashier. Sorry, the dirty Mexican and Guatemalan thieves have made my shopping experience untenable.

   CA is a total shithole

   1. Fairfield Home Depot is similar. I don’t even like leaving my car unattended in the parking lot. Lowes, a few miles away is great – completely different experience.

10. Nicaraguan hardware store –
    – discuss what you want with clerk
    – clerk brings stuff to counter from shelves out back
    – clerk writes out ticket
    – you take ticket to cashier booth and hand slip and money to cashier through opening in glass
    – cashier gives you change and stamps ticket
    – you give cancellado factura to the clerk and take your stuff or ask them to load it

    Checks and counter checks.

11. Liberal nirvana strikes again.