3 minute read
Retail Randoms
by 55 North
EASTER HIGH-DAY
When you hear that a store owner traipsed round several local supermarkets to buy 700 Easter baskets to give away to their customers, your first question must be: “Were they high?”
In this instance, the answer is probably yes.
The store – Bmillz in Waverly, New York – coyly describes itself as a ‘premium gift shop’ – but one that offers free marijuana with every purchase.
If this strikes you as an unorthodox business model, it’s to get round local laws that make the sale of cannabis illegal but the gifting of cannabis products perfectly above board.
This means the store’s online reviews run along the lines of: “I got a water bottle and a t-shirt. Love them both. The free gifts were bomb as well. Love them even more!”
The situation is reminiscent of a dodgy unlicensed club night where the organisers just happen to be running a tombola, where every ticket just happens to win a can of warm beer. Happy days.
And happy days for Bmillz. The store had – according to local TV station WBNG – “lines of residents wrapping around the corner waiting to get their Easter treats”. I’ll bet it did.
“It brought tears to my eyes because I love being a part of something special like that,” said Bill Fenton, one of the store’s joint owners. Pun intended.
NOT CROSS BUNS
Coles, a supermarket chain which operates 800 stores across Australia, has been crucified on social media after selling hot cross buns over Easter missing one vital ingredient – the cross.
A Sydney-based shopper posted an image on Reddit of what are best described as ‘hot line buns’, under the headline ‘You had one job, Coles’.
Bakers were quick to jump to the supermarket’s defence, pointing out that when you’re crossing thousands of buns an hour, “something goes wrong at some point”. Others suggested the hapless bun-crosser probably ran out of icing at the end of batch.
Further comments pondered on the increasing secularisation of society, with one labelling the offending cakes as a “non-religious iconography version”.
This isn’t entirely accurate, however. Given their belief that Jesus was executed on a single vertical stake, the buns cater nicely to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
At any rate, you have to draw the line somewhere; Coles duly apologised with an entirely predictable “We hope our customers aren’t too cross” response.
