Lawmakers proposing "door buster" legislation...

[totallyfrazzled]

IMO it's a tough call. I'm not a fan of Big Brotherism, or of government interfering in private enterprise, BUT.... as we see now with the economy, there are times when desperate situations demand desperate measures. IMO there should be some kind of law that any store/chain that creates a "potentially hazardous environment" (in this case, one that creates large numbers of people well in excess of normal business conditions) has a legal requirement to take measures to mitigate the potential hazard. How they do it (hiring police, holding a lottery for merchandise tickets, whatever) can be up to them but IMO if a retailer creates a monster they need to also establish control measures over it.

Personally I think the whole Black Friday thing is absolutely idiotic and should go the way of the dodo.

[NYRed]

Originally Posted by Arron

Couldn't agree more.

and here we go again, in this case blaming the store for the actions of individuals. People need to be held responsible for their own actions. "Oh it's not OUR fault! the sign said blitz so we didn't do anything wrong! the store should have had more security.. They didn't tell us NOT to break the doors down, so it's their fault.." Puh-leese..

It's sad that we've come to the point where we need to literally break the doors down to get into a walmart just to buy a bunch of crap at a slightly reduced price.

This will never happen cause humans are too figgin stupid to think anything could possibly be there fault!!!

Some folks should be fixed to prevent stupidity from spreading...

[sean sean sean sean]

Why why why why why? Why do we need a law? The Green Acres mall has been open for over fifty years....how many people have been trampled to death in that time? ONE. There are a dozen other malls on LI and countless more in the region and country and how many other times has this happened, ever, in half a century? This is insanity....it's an awful tragedy, but let's not get carried away. It's a freak accident and I have no doubt it'll serve as a wakeup call for stores and their patrons to show a little more restraint in the future.

There's really only so much blame you can put on the store AND the mob anyway. I'm sure nobody went to Wal-Mart that day saying to themselves "oh word, let's bust this door down and stomp some dude to death". It's easy to sit here and play armchair sale-crazed-consumer, but can everyone on here really say if they were in that situation they would have behaved any differently? And what is the store supposed to do...the economy is in the tank and every single one of their competitors took the same opportunity they did. Black Friday isn't anything new...

Remember, I'm the guy who said in one of these threads that I'd rather eat my own vomit than ever set foot in a Wal-Mart, and the people who get riled up about big sales and shopping sprees and malls equally disgust me even without criminal negligence - so I've got no love for anyone involved.... But to put forth legislation based on this incident is nothing more than empty, knee-jerk reactionary political photo-op bullspit and I think it's an insult to our collective intelligence to present this as some kind of shopping epidemic that is the scourge of the new millenium and must be dealt with through swift legal action. GET A GRIP!

[Chrisk327]

Our politicians can't leave well enough alone on so many issues. They stick there noses in where it doesn't belong. What we're going to have with "laws" for this stuff, that is going to cause a big process at lesser stores and not going to help at the large ones.

Want to motivate Walmart.... Fine them. Fine them for criminal negligence, and they will institute something, not that the fine would hurt their bottom line, but the bad PR will. From what I understand best buy has an orderly process, but walmart with its diversity in products would be more difficult to manage.

[TeamExit]

the people involved should be prosecuted. step up security and surveillance. its not the stores fault that someone got hurt, its the PEOPLE's fault.

[Smash255]

Originally Posted by sickofnyc99

I can see it now, next year they'll be advertising how safe they are. WE HAVE COPS IN RIOT GEAR EVERYONE!!!!! People should take responsibility for themselves. Period. People are so ready to blame someone else when they see themselves on camera shoving an old lady out of the way. Well it's not my fault! They said "Blitz". Now I'm saying this tongue in cheek, I know some people get upset (OMI, SMASH, just kidding). Should something be done, sure. Do we need to make it law? I don't think so.

Do we need laws everytime something goes wrong or some tragedy happens? Of course not. Unfortunately laws are sometimes needed to combat stupidity. Walmart has proven time and time again they will take the cheapest way out whenever possible. Taking the cheapest way out isn't always the best thing, especially in regards to safety. This should be something companies take care of themselves without needing government to interfere or provide laws about. However, with the way Walmart conducted themselves in this case they have proven that are unable (or more likely unwilling) to take care of this without taking the cheapest possible way out so perhaps we might need laws to force companies like Walmart to do so.

[totallyfrazzled]

Originally Posted by Smash255

Do we need laws everytime something goes wrong or some tragedy happens? Of course not. Unfortunately laws are sometimes needed to combat stupidity. Walmart has proven time and time again they will take the cheapest way out whenever possible. Taking the cheapest way out isn't always the best thing, especially in regards to safety. This should be something companies take care of themselves without needing government to interfere or provide laws about. However, with the way Walmart conducted themselves in this case they have proven that are unable (or more likely unwilling) to take care of this without taking the cheapest possible way out so perhaps we might need laws to force companies like Walmart to do so.

Exactly the way I feel about it too. No, there shouldn't HAVE TO be a law about this particular thing. But if you look at it in the broader context of public safety, I honestly don't see any valid objection to a law that would state that if anyone (whether private individual, or retailer, or workplace, or concert/special event organizer.... it doesn't matter who or for what purpose) creates a situation that encourages large numbers of people to congregate, that person or company must provide adequate crowd control and safety measures. It's as simple as that.

I honestly don't know if there are specific laws pertaining to, say, rock concerts, but that's a good example of a situation where the entity putting on the event knows that there's a possibility of undesirable behavior that may result in harm to not only the participants but to innocent bystanders. Are concert promoters required by law to provide security measures? I have no idea, but obviously they don't want to get sued (and neither does the arena or club owner, I'm sure), so if there aren't any laws they probably make sure they have all bases covered anyway, voluntarily. And if there are such laws on the books, would anyone really object to them? (if so, on what grounds would you object to a broad-based public-safety law?)

I did do a quick Google of "crowd control laws" and did come up with an ordinance passed by a Virginia city. Obviously this has nothing to do with Black Friday sales specifically, since it was prompted by a different kind of incident:
Fredericksburg.com - Westmoreland adopts crowd-control law

[WildCardSteve]

Appropriate for handling burboid livestock.

It's not like they were, human, or something.