# Take That Offensive Anti-War T-Shirt Out of our Mall!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [March 5, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236 "2003-03-05T14:11:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/1 "2003-03-05T14:11:58Z")
[http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20030305/ap\_on\_re\_us/mall\_activists&e=1](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20030305/ap_on_re_us/mall_activists&e=1)
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> ALBANY, N.Y. - A man was charged with trespassing in a mall after he refused to take off a T-shirt that said “Peace on Earth” and “Give peace a chance.”
Please tell me this is just another fabrication of Yahoo’s. I’d hate to think this was true.
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### Author:  [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/2 "2003-03-05T14:15:22Z")
This is certainly true, just type in ‘shirt’ on googles news search:
> **[Breaking International News & Views](https://www.reuters.com/)**
> **[Google News](https://news.google.com/search?hl=en-US&q=shirt&gl=US&ceid=US:en)**
>
> Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, aggregated from sources all over the world by Google News.
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### Author:  [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/3 "2003-03-05T14:16:40Z")
Well, a mall is private property. If they want to try and impose such a code, they’ve got every right. Doesn’t mean you have to shop there.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/4 "2003-03-05T14:18:12Z")
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> \*Originally posted by asterion \*
> \*\*Well, a mall is private property. If they want to try and impose such a code, they’ve got every right. Doesn’t mean you have to shop there. \*\*
So? Did anyone say they didnt? It also doesnt mean we dont have a right to complain about it in whatever forum we wish.
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### Author:  [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/5 "2003-03-05T14:18:48Z")
Wow! Pretty mild tee. So I run the risk of arrest because of the buttons I have on my briefcase? Sad.
Wonder if the mall would have objected had he worn a shirt saying, “Nuke the camel jockeys” or somesuch?
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### Author:  [@FranticMad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FranticMad)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/6 "2003-03-05T14:23:36Z")
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> he refused to take off a T-shirt that said “Peace on Earth”
He’s a witch! Burn him! Burn him! And his goat too! [Burn 'em thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=167267)
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### Author:  [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/7 "2003-03-05T14:25:37Z")
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> \*Originally posted by asterion \*
> \*\*Well, a mall is private property. If they want to try and impose such a code, they’ve got every right. \*\*
[serious question from non American] Would they have to give you notice?
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### Author:  [@Gorgon\_Heap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorgon_Heap)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/8 "2003-03-05T14:30:16Z")
Good call, **Dinsdale**. If I lived and shopped around there, I’d organize a boycott of that fucking place. Goddam fascist sunsabitched.
This shit really pisses me off. Hell, it even said they bought the shirts _at that mall_. Are they going to tell the store to stop selling them? Are they going to set a fucking dress code for all the mall patrons?
I would never shop there again. I am so angry right now.
It is only made worse by the fact that these guys were not actually being disruptive … and _what the FUCK is wrong with being against WAR???_
These cocksmokers can break their necks trying to eat their own asscracks if you ask me.
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### Author:  [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/9 "2003-03-05T14:34:58Z")
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> \*Originally posted by Gorgon Heap \*
> \*\*
> Hell, it even said they bought the shirts _at that mall_.
>
> \*\*
This is the part that just amazes me no end. My eyes have rolled back so far in my head that I’m typing this with my optic nerves. Unbelievable.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/10 "2003-03-05T14:37:00Z")
It sounds like a couple of mall security guards just decided, all by themselves, to be offended. Fuck those asshole rent-a-cops, man. Albany needs to boycott that fucking mall.
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### Author:  [@Antimanics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antimanics)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/11 "2003-03-05T14:39:01Z")
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> \*Originally posted by Ludovic \*
> \*\*It also doesnt mean we dont have a right to complain about it in whatever forum we wish. \*\*
Actually, you don’t have a right to complain about it on whatever forum you wish.
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### Author:  [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/12 "2003-03-05T14:43:59Z")
No notice need be posted, that was what the security guard did, was give notice. Extremely stupid from a PR perspective. He managed to alienate at least 40% of his shopping audiance there (I don’t recall the exact stats, but women are the majority of mall traffic, and it may be even higher than 40%)
I think it’s a hoot that a shop _IN THE MALL_ sold the t-shirt.
I think a certain security guard that with a small penis will soon be standing in the unemployment line.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/13 "2003-03-05T14:50:21Z")
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> \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \*
> \*\* Albany needs to boycott that fucking mall. \*\*
But then they’d have to go to Colonie Center, and that place has really gone downhill.
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### Author:  [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/14 "2003-03-05T14:50:30Z")
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> \*Originally posted by Gorgon Heap \*
> \*\*Good call, **Dinsdale**. If I lived and shopped around there, I’d organize a boycott of that fucking place. Goddam fascist sunsabitched. \*\*
If you’ve never been there you truly can’t appreciate what a hellhole that place is. It’s absolutely stuffed with lackwits working and shopping in two hundred separate versions of Crap 'R Us.
Yes, the security guards were twits, but they were actually doing the guy a favor by trying to throw him out.
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### Author:  [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/15 "2003-03-05T15:19:49Z")
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> \*Originally posted by NurseCarmen \*
> **No notice need be posted, that was what the security guard did, was give notice. Extremely stupid from a PR perspective. He managed to alienate at least 40% of his shopping audiance there (I don’t recall the exact stats, but women are the majority of mall traffic, and it may be even higher than 40%)**
No - 99% of them will just be more careful about what they wear to the mall. You don’t think they’ll be alienated enough to actually shop somewhere else, do you?
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### Author:  [@Gorgon\_Heap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorgon_Heap)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/16 "2003-03-05T15:23:27Z")
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> _Originally posted by Exgineer_
> they were actually doing the guy a favor by trying to throw him out.
[sigh] And I’ve had punk friends thrown out of Italian pizza joints because “we don’t serve your kind here.”
Who says capitalism is run rampant in the US? If we don’t liek what you’re wearing we obviously don’t need your cash.
:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/17 "2003-03-05T15:32:52Z")
You know, much as I love America, this is an example of this country at its worst. It’s OK to sell an opinion, just not express it. :rolleyes:
Surely there must be some other place within miles where people can shop? Then again, I suspect once word of this gets out, the mall probably will apologize out of embarrassment. If that’s the case, I’m happy to contribute.
CJ
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### Author:  [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/18 "2003-03-05T16:06:46Z")
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> \*Originally posted by cjhoworth \*
> \*\*You know, much as I love America, this is an example of this country at its worst. It’s OK to sell an opinion, just not express it. \*\*
Can we please quit with the “America at it’s worst” crap that seems to pervade so many posts recently. This one episode had fuck-all to do with “America”, or with the government. It had to do with a idiotic pissant security guard whose IQ could be counted on one hand, and I’m sick of every little thing that happens in this country being an indictment of this country. There’s idiots in every country of the world, so just stop it! Thank you for your time.
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/19 "2003-03-05T16:14:05Z")
Crossgates if the black hole of shopping in Albany.
It sucks all the other stores in and you can not escape it. It has two movie theatres. A 12 screen and an 18 screen one. I think 200 stores is a very low ball figure. Admittly the only time I’ve been there is during the holiday shopping rush but it was a pretty horrible shopping expierence.
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### Author:  [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/take-that-offensive-anti-war-t-shirt-out-of-our-mall/159236/20 "2003-03-05T16:15:35Z")
What **Hamlet** said.
All this incident demonstrates is that some mall security guards are dipshits.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone.
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