The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-08-01
SHOULD stop IT.
City Council Asked for a New
Ordinance.
Put End to Merchants AccOst.
ing People on Walks.
BUTIN ONE LOCALITY
Practice Confined to Lower Kan.
sas Avenue.
Other Cities Already Have Such
Ordinances.

For some time past 1t has been the
| custom Of many of the clothing and
dry goods merchants and their clerks
on lower Kansas avenue to stand in
front of their stores and seize upon
passing shoppers from the country
lstowns and drag them into their places
of business whether they wanted to go
lin or not. Once inside the victim was
almost forced to buy bill Of merchan-
disc. This practice has been getting
worse until it has now assumed the
proportions of public nuisance.
| Complaint has been made to the
members of the council about this mat
ter and an ordinance prohibiting the
practice asked for. but nothing has yet
been attempted to abate the nuisance.
Merchants who conduct their business
along legitimate lines are responsible
for an ordinance to be introduced at
the council meeting Monday night
making this habit of merchants drag
ging unwilling persons and passersby
into their stores a misdemeanor, pun
ishable by a fine in police court.
They have sucn an ordinance in all
the other large cities of the west" said
a merchant in talking of the matter
today, land l do not see why Topeka
SnOulQ hesitate 10 pass SUCH d law 1
do not think our people generally real
ize to what an extent this practice has
grown. There is one block on lower
Kansas avenue, yes, l might say there
are two of them, where the proprietors
and their clerks stand out in front and
nab every passerby, man or woman,
who looks like stranger in the city,
and drag them into their stores and
hold them there for hours. They act
ually force these victims to buy some
thing.
"a woman accompanied by a little
boy entered my store one day this
week on the verge of a. nervous col
lapse. She had been crying. and brok-
emily told one of my clerks her expert
ence. She said she was passing GER
tain clothing store on the lower avenue
(and she gave the name of the pro-
prietor) and a couple of men standing
out in front (the proprietor and his
clerk) took her by the arm and led her
into the store in spite of her strug-
giles and protestations and kept her
there three hours. In order to escape
she said she took a suit of clothes for
her husband. She had the clothes in a
bundle under her arm, and sent them
back while she was in my store.
81 have had half a dozen similar
cases recently of men and women
who have entered my store and told
me of the outrages they had sub
mitted to at the hands of certain of
these merchants. Now I advertise
extensively and get big trade from
the country and adjoining towns.
Many of my regular customers tell
me they have been dragged into
these stores by the proprietors who
told them that this was IS, the
store they had read about and ac-
tually used force and violence to get
them inside.
$50 far as am personally con-
cerned these tactics hurt me but little
in dollars and cents or actual sales
lost, but it is the fact that such things
are allowed in Topeka that hurt the
city generally and - the trade of all
merchants who do business cour-