- #71
Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
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Hurkyl said:It's a quote from Men in Black;
:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
An unexpected reference!
Hurkyl said:It's a quote from Men in Black;
Greg Bernhardt said:The stores certainly didn't help the situation, totally agreed. But I still stick with personal responsibility. The stores can't make anyone do anything. It is a personal choice to act a certain way.
Proton Soup said:how do you feel about the poor stocker that got assigned to man the doors? is the store not responsible for putting him in that position?
I agree. It wouldn't have taken much effort to put up rope lines to get people to enter in a more orderly fashion, especially once they saw the crowd growing.Cyrus said:I'm sorry, but you are way off the mark. These types of crowds rushing into stores is a known problem that has been going on for a few years now. When the store does nothing about crowd control knowing full well what has happened historically, they are at fault.
Greg Bernhardt said:How about the crowd controlling themselves knowing full well of what has happened historically. Are we freakin stupid zombies all of a sudden that need to be corralled like cows?
Moonbear said:I agree. It wouldn't have taken much effort to put up rope lines to get people to enter in a more orderly fashion, especially once they saw the crowd growing.
The point is that once someone is in the middle of that crowd, whether they planned to walk in calmly and orderly or not, they propelled forward by the unruly mob behind them. Why the people at the back of the line think they're going to get a better chance at buying some cheap crap if they push the people in front of them faster, I don't know, but it's usually the people in the back of the crowd that are more the problem than the ones in the front. It doesn't take much on the part of the store to put some measures in place to control that crowd. From setting up a single-file queue with rope lines, to even putting an occassional stop in place along that queue so people have to wait for a portion of the line to move before the next section moves to keep things moving slowly and organized, it really isn't hard. It's the same concept used by amusement parks. You don't just let everyone in the parking lot rush at the door at one time and in no order!
I hope the employee's family sues the pants off Walmart for the loss. As for preventing it in the future, I think the best hope is for the insurance carriers for those stores to raise rates through the roof if they hold "door buster" type sales, and raise them astronomically, or drop them entirely, if they don't put specific security measures in place to prevent such incidents from happening.
K to J!Hurkyl said:A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it!
Greg Bernhardt said:Are we freakin stupid zombies all of a sudden that need to be corralled like cows?
Monique said:I agree with Moonbear that there should be additional security measures taken in situations that are potential crowd-attractors, but I think it will be difficult to make a law to reinforce this (how much crowd control do you need for what situations).
turbo-1 said:Sears was even more blatant about the "quantities limited" and "bait and switch" scams years back. In 1982, my wife did not have a driver's license, so I bought a nice Honda Civic, and since winter was coming on, I wanted to equip it with all-weather tires. Sears advertised a sale that featured some high-quality Michelin tires, and of course, the smallest ones (that fit the Civic) had REALLY low prices in the ads. I was the first person in the store, only to be told that those tires were sold out in that size. I had to threaten the manager with a law-suit before she agreed to issue a rain-check.
During that same sale, an attractively-priced set of screwdrivers were also "sold out" first thing in the morning, though larger, more expensive sets were available. Creeps.
Moonbear said:Back in the 80's, a lot of stores used those methods to attract customers, which is why there are more laws prohibiting it now. The other common trick used by stores selling major appliances was to put out a circular ad with an unbelievably low price on an item like a refrigerator or washer and dryer set. When you got to the store to buy it, it would be sold out, even though the same model was sitting on the floor in front of you. They'd then point to the fine print in the ad that would list the SERIAL number of the appliance for sale...they only had ONE at that price! I don't know how that ever really worked, because when they tried it on my parents, we just walked out in disgust from that appliance store never to return.
LowlyPion said:The simplest way to deal with it is to create a line in the parking lot and force people to enter in a much narrower stream than the doors. No line then the doors won't open. It should only take a few employees outside to create orderliness and throw up a temporary rope line.
I was reading about a man in NJ that was pinned to the ground by Walmart employees for shoplifting a few day ago and he died.
If they have the muscle to do that, then they should have been able to prevent a surging crowd.