"No food or drinks allowed"

In 2005 almost every store in the mall had a "No food or drinks allowed" sign up in the front of their store. This sucked big time since the first place people visit is the food court when they go to the mall. Then you walk around and start to want to shop and so on until that damn sign stops you. Well, you get a little irritated and then take your business to a store that allows food and drinks in the store.

Well when I visit the mall for whatever reason it may be, I ALWAYS want to stop and get an Orange Julius before I do anything else. Well as I walked around in the mall, I did notice a lot of shops not allowing my drink in. So I would walk in anyway and tell them that since I can't have my drink in this store I will take my business else where. And I did that to every store I shopped at before. Well, those sale reps did not like that, not one bit!

I stopped going to the mall after that. Well, like for a month. BUT! As the months passed by I noticed that fewer shops had taken down their signs of "No food or drinks allowed". Now I'm not saying by any means that I started that movement, but it was people like me that did. The people that were fed up of having to wait till their children were done snacking on that pretzel, or that group of teen girls where done with there ice cream. It was people like that.

I understand the problem with having these privileges that there may be some problems. Like a spill, or a stain on a shirt. But this also applies to the dressing rooms. Women try on clothes and leave smudges of make up, deodorant all over the clothes. Well, I asked myself, why hasn't that privilege been taken away That's because the retailer would lose business. Lose money. Same goes for the no food or drinks movement. Retailers, I am assuming got the hint when they noticed that people would not walk into their stores because of the drinks the consumer was sipping. Well, I'm sure that one store wanted to take the risk of a couple ruined shirts for more business and the rest just hopped on the ban wagon.

Well as you know, the major department stores never carried this rule. As to why they are probably doing very well. Now all this has been an assumption of V's thoughts, and its a pretty damn good one if you ask me!

Retired Mall Rat,
V