Criticism
Following an undercover investigation by television station WEWS in Cleveland, Spencer's was criticized for allowing children access to adult toys and explicit items such as a lollipop in the shape of a penis. Parma, Ohio, Mayor Dean DePiero has vowed to force changes at the store located in the Parmatown Mall after viewing the story. On March 22, 2000, WFTS-TV in Tampa, Florida also did a story on it. Items that draw attention to the store are semi-nude posters of women hanging up in the window, Playboy items such as tote bags and delicates, and seasonal items such as Halloween costumes. Due to these complaints erotic material has been moved to the back of the store where it can be viewed and/or bought by those who are over 18 years of age and have proper identification. Sales may be refused to minors or persons without the proper ID at the discretion of the employees on duty at that particular location.
Read more about this topic: Spencer Gifts
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)