RadioShack’s VP Of Stores Keeps Reminding People That It Still Exists

RadioShack declared bankruptcy last February and closed around 2,300 of its stores. Around 1,700 of the company’s stores didn’t close, though, and the Shack’s leaders want you to know that not only are they still around, but they’re making progress toward their goal of becoming a neighborhood electronics store.

The continuing existence of RadioShack stores is because of Sprint, which partnered with the retail business’s new owners to put mini Sprint stores in each RadioShack. One hidden benefit to this arrangement was that the stores no longer need to display, and employees no longer need to sell, smartphones from every major national carrier. That frees up space and attention to maybe sell some other types of electronics.

A writer for Popular Mechanics recently visited a RadioShack that’s finally stocked with the chain’s new assortment of merchandise, and he was impressed, noting that while the stores used to be “run-down phone purveyors secretly wanting to be Best Buys,” now they have more of the spirit of a neighborhood electronics store, and the do-it-yourself electronics kits that used to bring shippers to RadioShack in decades past.

You can’t by a TRS-80, or any computers at all, but you can definitely buy a soldering kit and other useful toys.

Is RadioShack Back? [Popular Mechanics]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Renters Claim They Were Evicted For Being An Interracial Couple

While federal law explicitly prohibits the consideration of “race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin” in determining who can rent or buy a home, some Americans still face this illegal discrimination for something as simple as finding a place to live.

A married couple in Mississippi tell the Clarion-Ledger that they were given the boot from their RV park after the landlord learned that the wife is white and the husband black.

The wife, whose husband is serving with the armed forces in Afghanistan, said she rented the spot at the park on Feb. 28, and the landlord was very polite, even inviting her to church.

But then the next day, she said she received a phone call from the landlord.

According to the wife, he told her, “You didn’t tell me you was married to no old black man.”

“I didn’t think it was important or a problem,” she told the man, who allegedly replied, “Oh it’s a big problem.’”

She claims that the landlord told her that the members of his church, community, and family “won’t have that white and black shacking stuff.”

The wife says she tried to explain that she and her husband were not “shacking up” but were happily married. To which, she says, the landlord replied that it was the “same thing.”

She says she made repeated attempts to reason with the landlord, pointing out that her husband — a sergeant in the U.S. Army — had served this country for 13 years, but “There was no reasoning with him.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

All Hancock Fabrics Stores Will Liquidate, Close

Back in February, the long-troubled craft store chain Hancock Fabrics filed for bankruptcy for the second time in a decade. This time, there will be no reorganization. The chain planned to close 70 stores and tried to find a buyer for the remaining 185 that would keep the open and preserve thousands of jobs across the country. The winning bidder in yesterday’s auction in bankruptcy court was Great American Group, a liquidator.

If that name sounds familiar, you’ve probably come across the company while bargain-hunting in the past. Great American Group is part of what Consumerist once called a “notorious cabal” of liquidators known for garish signs, terrible deals, and taking the “all sales final” policy very seriously.

Liquidation sales start today, and include the chain’s website. In traditional liquidation sale style, the deals aren’t very good yet.

While the chain’s closing is welcome news to some of the nation’s 8-year-olds, it leaves fans of sewing clothing with fewer in-person shopping choices. While home sewing is making a comeback, things aren’t as they were when the chain opened and sewing one’s own clothes was a common skill and the more economical choice.

Hancock Fabrics last filed for bankruptcy in 2007, but since its re-organization has only posted a profit once, in 2009.

B. Riley Financial’s Great American Group to Close Remaining Hancock Fabric Stores [Press Release]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Minneapolis Council Votes To Ban Plastic Bags At Store Checkouts, Impose Paper Bag Fee

Better keep your pile of reusable shopping bags close at hand, Minneapolis residents: the city’s council just voted to ban all plastic bags from store checkouts and impose a fee on customers who opt to get a paper bag instead of bringing their own carriers.

Starting June 1, 2017, businesses in the city won’t be allowed to use plastic bags to pack up customers’ purchases, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports, after the City Council voted 10-3 in favor of the ban.

The city is also imposing $0.05-fee on each paper bag given out as well. Or, businesses can donate $0.05 for every paper, compostable, or reusable bag they hand out, which will go to groups that organize litter cleanup.

Supporters of the ban said it will help change how people act, cut down on litter, and get the city closer to its green goal of zero waste.

“I am excited that we’ve landed on something,” the ordinance’s sponsor and one of the city’s council members, Cam Gordon, told the paper. “I know that the city isn’t united on it, but I also know that by and large, people are enthusiastic and ready to make this move.”

Exempt from the rule will be bags without handles that are used for things like produce, bulk products, frozen foods, flowers, baked goods, newspapers, dry cleaning, and prescription drugs.

Minneapolis joins cities like Seattle; Portland, OR; Los Angeles; Chicago; Cambridge, MA, and others who have legalized such bans. Hawaii is so far the only state that has a ban on plastic bags.

Minneapolis council votes to ban plastic bags, impose paper-bag fee [Minneapolis Star Tribune]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Yep, Spring Black Friday Is Still A @#$@*$% Thing

Most retailers use Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, to kick off their biggest shopping season of the year, even if they also move the sales kickoff around a bit. For stores that sell home-improvement and gardening supplies, spring is their biggest shopping season. That impeccable logic led to the invention of Spring Black Friday, which we first noticed in 2013. It isn’t going away.

We’d like to say that this is a silly self-promotional yet self-effacing April Fool’s Day prank, but the trend of spring Black Fridays at home-improvement stores is a few years old, and appears on different days of the calendar. Nope, it’s real, and back for another season at Lowe’s.

Courtesy of reader Henry, here’s an e-mail solicitation that Lowe’s sent out today. Other home improvement stores will join in soon if they haven’t already. Last year, Home Depot had an entire Spring Cyber Week.

Once the spring planting season is over, there’s just a few short months until Black Friday in July begins at Target and other retailers.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

FDA Proposes Limit For Inorganic Arsenic In Infant Rice Cereal

While there are currently no federal limits on arsenic levels in most food, the Food and Drug Administration announced today that it’s taking steps aimed at reducing inorganic arsenic in at least one product, infant rice cereal.

About 3.5 years after our esteemed colleagues at Consumer Reports found arsenic in a wide range of rice products, and 2.5 years after the FDA’s own tests essentially confirmed the CR study’s findings, the agency released a draft guidance to the industry that proposes an action level, or limit, of 100 parts per billion (ppb) for inorganic arsenic in infant rice cereal.

The FDA says this is parallel to the level set by the European Commission for rice that’s intended for the production of food for infants and young children. It’s different because the EC standard addresses the rice itself, while the FDA’s proposed guidance concerns levels for inorganic arsenic in rice cereal products, the FDA notes.

According to the agency, the majority of infant rice cereal currently on the market either meets, or is close to, the proposed limit.

“Our actions are driven by our duty to protect the public health and our careful analysis of the data and the emerging science,” said Susan Mayne, Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “The proposed limit is a prudent and achievable step to reduce exposure to arsenic among infants.”

This is all well and good of course, if you’re an infant, but what about all those other rice products?

Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., executive director of the Consumer Reports Food Safety & Sustainability Center, weighed in on the FDA’s announcement, and asks that very question.

“While Consumer Reports is pleased to see that the FDA has finally proposed a limit on arsenic in infant rice cereal, and it is close to the level we recommended more than three years ago, we remain concerned that so many other rice-based products consumed by children and adults remain without any standards at all,” Rangan said, noting that it’s particularly true of children’s ready-to-eat cereals.
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“We believe the FDA can act swiftly to protect public health and set levels on these products based on the risk the agency has acknowledged in its announcement today, and we intend to continue to push them on behalf of consumers to do so,” Rangan said in a statement. “In the meantime, we continue to advise that infants and children diversify their diets and focus on alternatives to rice.”

In the meantime, if you’re worried about arsenic in rice, you can choose to limit how much rice you consume each week just to be safe.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Company Claiming Patent On Online Voting Ordered To Pay Legal Fees After Suing Hobbyist Photo Site

Last year, a small hobbyist photo-sharing website decided to fight back against a lawsuit alleging that it infringed on a bizarre patent covering virtually the entire concept of online voting. The patent-holder plaintiff subsequently dropped the case after a heavy-hitting advocacy organization got involved, but the court has ordered the plaintiff to fork over thousands of dollars in legal fees for its “unreasonable” conduct.

The backstory: Since 2003, a site called BytePhoto.com has been allowing community members to upload photos to compete in “Photo of the Month” contests. This is not some huge Flickr or Instagram pic-sharing site. In fact, court records indicate that its a money-losing labor of love for its owners.

But in 2014, the site was sued by a New Jersey company called Garfum, which in 2012 was granted a patent that could liberally be construed to cover any sort of voting based on a selection of images.

Unwilling to pay the $50,000 “settlement” offer from Garfum, BytePhoto — later supported by lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation — fought back, claiming the patent is not some new invention or system, but merely transfers the generic idea of voting for your favorite photo from the real world to the virtual realm.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2014’s Alice Corp v. CLS Bank International that existing basic concepts — “the ‘building blocks’ of human ingenuity” — are ineligible for patent protection.

In other words, you can’t take an ages old idea — voting for your favorite from a selection of options — and patent the concept just because it’s being done online or on a computer. As such, BytePhoto filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the patent was unenforceable.

Facing the EFF’s legal experts and new Supreme Court precedent, Garfum (not to be confused with Eau de Garfunk, Art Garfunkle’s short-lived cologne that we just made up) dropped the case in May 2015 with a “covenant not to sue” BytePhoto, saying that the plaintiff had “run out of options.”

Having wasted the time of BytePhoto’s owners, their lawyers, and court, the battle then began for legal fees.

The defendants argued that Garfum had litigated the case “in bad faith,” but Garfum countered that BytePhoto had not actually prevailed in the lawsuit and should not be due any attorney fees.

However, the judge pointed out [PDF] that appellate court precedent and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure say otherwise, and that BytePhoto had indeed prevailed.

Further, when looking at the merits of BytePhoto’s argument that the patent in question only covers an un-patentable generic concept, the judge concluded that this patent is just describing an abstraction — “ranking content by popularity and within a category” — and that “the requirement to involve an online database does not make the claim inventive.”

“[A]ny person with pen or paper could perform the same steps of the method claimed in the patent — tallying votes and organizing content based on those tallied votes,” explains the judge. “It is of no moment that the votes may be numerous or the amount of content to organize voluminous; the patent itself claims ‘a plurality’ meaning only more than one.”

With regard to Garfum’s behavior during the lawsuit, the court agrees with BytePhoto that the case was “not litigated in a manner showing confidence in a strong litigation position,” noting that the initial $50,000 settlement demand was quickly dropped by 90% to $5,000 then an additional 50% to $2,500, then dropped the complaint altogether after the defendant filed the motion to dismiss. The judge says this could be read as Garfum trying to get out before the patent was challenged.

Making things look even worse for Garfum is that BytePhoto rejected Garfum’s walk-away offer because BytePhoto was intent on getting the court to rule on the validity of the patent.

In explaining its decision to quit the case, Garfum said that “pursuing the case further did not make any financial sense in light of the low potential damages and that it did not have the financial wherewithal to engage in protracted litigation.”

But the judge says the timing of Garfum’s exit — immediately after the court decided to hear BytePhoto’s motion to dismiss — “makes it appear as though Plaintiff was running away from any decision on the merits.”

The judge also calls BS on the “run out of options” excuse given by Garfum.

“For Plaintiff to claim that it had no other option but to provide a covenant not to sue to avoid the
attendant consequences of bringing a lawsuit is at odds with the fact that Plaintiff is the one who filed suit,” explains the judge.

In total, Garfum is currently on the hook for just under $29,000 in fees for three attorneys involved in the case. That will increase slightly after the court accounts for the hours put in on the final documents related to the fee dispute.

This only represents costs for the work done by these lawyers since April of 2015. Had Garfum been required to cover the full legal fees, it would have been closed to $64,000.

[via Ars Technica]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist