I Bring You Tidings Of No Comfort And Joy

Sat., Dec. 20, 1997

Krista Kubicek Special To Opinion

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I were leaving a local mall at closing time. It is apparently routine for stores to place their garbage from the day in the center of the mall aisles for pickup by custodial crews. As we passed one pile, we couldn’t help but notice two large boxes of shoes.

We looked around and realized these were discards from a nearby shoe store. We were appalled at the thought of those perfectly good shoes going to waste when there are so many people who could use them. The shoe store employees had left for the day so we verified with a mall employee that they were indeed “garbage.”

We were preparing to take the shoes and deliver them ourselves to a shelter of some sort when we discovered something that sickened our stomachs. Each shoe had been slit with a razor, right across the top, making the shoes worthless to anyone!

Among the shoes, flawed only by the razor and perhaps a discontinued model number, were leather boots, warm snow shoes and boots, and nice dress shoes for both men and women. What on Earth could be the justification for destroying such merchandise when so many people go without and many others donate hard-earned money and belongings to those in need? And shoes, of all things. Wasted shoes in the middle of winter, during the holiday season!

My husband and I could only conclude that certain business-minded individuals must consider it bad business practice to allow unsold merchandise to be given away, thus somehow devaluing their store and products.

There are some questions we’d like answered: Is this common practice among businesses? Were we just naive to have stumbled upon this and considered it an isolated and repulsive practice? What happens to what must be truckloads of unsold merchandise in businesses of all kinds? Do warm coats and sweaters get slaughtered as well?

Perhaps I am naive, but it seems to me that such businesses could make contributions to organizations and even receive a business deduction. If leftover food from supermarkets can be donated to shelters, why not shoes? If there is a law that says merchants must destroy unsold shoes, change the law. Common practice or not, I find this deliberate mutilation of such valuable commodities disgusting. What a shameless waste.

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.

Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.

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