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Mall forces store to stop selling Nazi flags
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Arizona Mills mall officials today forced one of their merchandisers to stop selling Nazi flags.
All Flags & Sports, which also offers sports merchandise and other memorabilia, had been selling replicas of flags used by the Nazi Party in Germany before and during World War II.
“We don’t condone that kind of merchandise being sold,” said the mall’s general manager, Todd R. Olson.
Olson said the store’s owner was compliant and authorized his employees to pull the flags from the store’s sales floor.
Mall officials’ order to remove the merchandise occurred after Jeremy Marwil, a 34-year-old Scottsdale resident, said he began peppering them with complaints starting in June.
“I just thought that the Nazi flag just sort of crossed the line of really poor taste,” he said.
Stores officials said they didn’t intend to offend anyone and said many flags, including the Nazi flag, are historically relevant and intended as collectors’ items.
Moe Sam, assistant store manager, said the store also sells Israeli flags, which Marwil acknowledged seeing during a recent visit.
A Tribune reporter, who visited the store Tuesday morning before the flags’ removal, purchased one of two flags bearing swastikas in an area of the store that was obstructed by a ladder and other material. The store displayed replicas of flags used by the communist Cuban government, a replica of an imperial Japanese flag used by the country during World War II, and replicas of flags used by the Confederacy during the Civil War, including one that read “The South will rise again.” The store also sold rainbow-colored flags used as a symbol of pride in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities.
Sam said he thinks the criticism is unfair.
“No one is here to offend anyone,” he said.
All Flags & Sports operates two other stores in Ontario, Calif., and Orange, Calif.
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