A sour note for choir at Wal-Mart (booted from NY store)

Newsday ^ | December 16, 2005 | CHRISTINE ARMARIO

[NYer]

A festive group of high school choir students from Central Islip singing at an Islandia shopping center discovered over the weekend that some people were not in the holiday spirit.

After entering a Wal-Mart store, the choir was quickly asked to leave before even starting to sing its first song.

[Texas_Jarhead]

Big Box jerks.

[madprof98]

If this had happened at a Target, they never would have printed it.

[Termite_Commander]

A fire hazard, huh?

One of them might combust, and then the flames would spread through the rest of the group, I suppose.

[NYer]

Bah humbug to Wal-Mart!

Catholic Ping
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[coconutt2000]

Unimaginative store manager should have asked them to take a half-hour break while he had staff clear an area for them to carol in.

[demsux]

Unimaginative store manager should have asked them to take a half-hour break while he had staff clear an area for them to carol in.

Amen to that.

[ShadowDancer]

30 people in WalMart presents a fire code violation? There are at least that many people in their nasty smelling clothing section at any given time.

[ExSafecracker]

...fire hazard???.....

Maybe the store manager thought the group was really
Great White!

[JimSEA]

Imagine how much money would be lost when shoppers paused to listen to the carols!!!

[Richard Kimball]

Walmart store managers have practically no authority. They do not decide what to stock in the stores, what products to advertise, where to advertise, the staffing level at different times of days (at least, that's what the Walmart people I know say). Practically everything is decided at a regional level. It's not at all surprising that you're reading more and more stories about managers not being able to make a decision on things that seem pretty simple (calling the police on a choir, or a guy that you can't confirm his check, for example).

The people wanting to see Walmart crash will probably not have to wait too long. I think they're reaching that point in their corporate history where they're more concerned with their internal rules than doing business. They're ripe for a fall.

[CindyDawg]

And the black Friday pack weren't?

[Rocky]

Low prices, no heart.

[CindyDawg]

Well it sounds like someone might have got in trouble. They were invited back and a donation was made to the school. I bet the media had a hard time with this. Christians..Walmarts. Someone going to have to be the good guy.

[CindyDawg]

They really should have asked though.

[Dane]

Before the Wal-Mart bashing gets to a fever pitch, look at the last paragraph.

Wal-Mart has offered the school an opportunity for the choir to return at a scheduled time. The store also made an undisclosed donation toward the choir's trip next summer to Austria, where they will be one of three student choirs from the United States to perform at a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth

[SouthernFreebird]

They were afraid someone would be 'offended' by a Christmas carol. No balls if you ask me.

[BenLurkin]

They showed up uninvited. The store doesn't know what to expect.

Kids these days are as likely to be a menace as not.

Went to Ben Jr.'s HS "Winter Recital". The students (not all -- but most) were a bunch of creeps. And these were the kids bright enough to play an instrument!

[kublia khan]

1st generation leadership failure to adapt; almost every civic, religious and business organization goes through it, the smart ones learn from it the not so smart die of it.

[Doctor Don]

Was the Walmart manager afraid they would say "Jesus"?