Unfortunately yes. It’s kind of a reverse “big city” problem here. In towns and small cities a lot of stores are demanding people to leave their backpack at the front counter and grab it back when they leave. I grew up in a town of ~7000 people and everyone has a car, just like in the US. Everyone is dependent on a car. So stores don’t want backpacks because they’re associated with mischievous students. Why don’t you just leave your backpack in your car? In fact, why don’t you have a car? Why the fuck do you need a backpack?! Are you a kid or something?!
I moved to Montréal nearly two decades ago and I’m happy to be car free. But every time I go back to my hometown, I get reminded that adults walking around with a backpack is not the norm in that part of the world. In bigger cities and dense areas, there’s enough people without a car to just walk everywhere with a backpack and it becomes impossible to demand everyone to leave them at the counter. And people might protest it anyway. It’s one thing to demand teenagers to leave a backpack with a random store employee, but it’s another to demand office workers to leave their backpack containing a corporate laptop with a random store employee.
Whenever I encounter this practise, I get a bit insulted and usually refuse to play their game if I have a backpack with me.
I also wonder why men can’t bring a backpack in the store but a woman can bring their purse/bag without any problem, (at least here where i live it happens) it make no sense!
Typically downtown in big cities, or lower income areas l. I have been in a few stores where the entire health and beauty dept. was behind some kind of case.
US problem. I live in Montréal and locked items in pharmacies is generally not a thing here. We can even walk in most stores with our backpacks.
what? there’s some stores you can’t?
Unfortunately yes. It’s kind of a reverse “big city” problem here. In towns and small cities a lot of stores are demanding people to leave their backpack at the front counter and grab it back when they leave. I grew up in a town of ~7000 people and everyone has a car, just like in the US. Everyone is dependent on a car. So stores don’t want backpacks because they’re associated with mischievous students. Why don’t you just leave your backpack in your car? In fact, why don’t you have a car? Why the fuck do you need a backpack?! Are you a kid or something?!
I moved to Montréal nearly two decades ago and I’m happy to be car free. But every time I go back to my hometown, I get reminded that adults walking around with a backpack is not the norm in that part of the world. In bigger cities and dense areas, there’s enough people without a car to just walk everywhere with a backpack and it becomes impossible to demand everyone to leave them at the counter. And people might protest it anyway. It’s one thing to demand teenagers to leave a backpack with a random store employee, but it’s another to demand office workers to leave their backpack containing a corporate laptop with a random store employee.
Whenever I encounter this practise, I get a bit insulted and usually refuse to play their game if I have a backpack with me.
I also wonder why men can’t bring a backpack in the store but a woman can bring their purse/bag without any problem, (at least here where i live it happens) it make no sense!
Never seen it for deodorant and I’ve lived in the US for decades.
Typically downtown in big cities, or lower income areas l. I have been in a few stores where the entire health and beauty dept. was behind some kind of case.
Never seen this at all, having lived in low-income areas of the two biggest cities of austria. So far it seems like a US problem to me.
I live in midtown manhattan, all the drug stores here have locked up all of the deodorant. Even Irish Spring bars are locked up now lol.
It doesn’t even work; turns out retails CEOs misrepresented their sources of inventory loss, and random petty theft is a tiny factor.
Oh whaaaat CEOs failed to understand a simple core problem for their companyyy~? OMG I’m so shocked I need to sit down…
Just about anywhere in the South you’ll see it.