Wal-Mart Makes Check-Out Lanes Family-Friendly

Taken from CWFA.org (Article Date: June 11, 2003):

Places Blinders Over Racy Magazines

Wal-Mart’s latest move toward a family-friendly environment is being greeted by cheers and ringing registers. On June 6 the nation’s largest retailer announced that it will be installing U-shaped blinders over four racy women’s magazines in its check-out aisles.

“For at least a year we’d been getting some feedback … from customers
who were uncomfortable with [the covers],” Wal-Mart spokesman Jay Allen told Reuters on Friday.

Wal-Mart announced that it will be installing specially
made, U-shaped magazine racks that will conceal the story tease lines on each side of the magazine, leaving the center and the magazine’s name viewable.

The magazines involved are Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire and
Glamour. Those magazines will continue to be displayed in the store’s magazine section without any sort of cover.

Wal-Mart has been testing various blinders and ways to satisfy the
magazine’s readers while protecting children. The new magazine rack blinders should be in all Wal-Mart stores by July.

“We are very pleased that Wal-Mart has taken this step to protect our families,” said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.

“This action, along with the discontinued sale of the racy men’s
magazines, and the retailer’s refusal to sell music with adult-rated lyrics, among other things, show’s Wal-Mart’s commitment to the family,” he added.

“We encourage families to be looking for these new blinders, and when
they see them to make sure they extend a thank-you to the store manager,” Knight said.

Arthur Ally, coalition leader and president of The Timothy Plan, a collection of pro-family mutual funds and, said he hopes that appreciative families will further reward the retail giant.

“I hope that customers will take the time to link their appreciation for
this action to their patronage of the retailer. Wal-Mart’s ‘language of love’ is the ringing of its registers. That 'thank-you,' linked to this action, will go a long way in the fight for decency both at Wal-Mart and among its competitors,” Ally told Culture & Family Report.

The Timothy Plan is also saying “thank-you” to the company by reversing its August decision to sell all of its shares of Wal-Mart stock. That move was made after repeated requests for the action went unheeded.

“As of today, Wal-Mart is off our screens,” Ally said. “Our fund managers now have a green light to buy Wal-Mart shares for our
family of mutual funds.”

Those customer complaints that led to this change were accompanied by united action from 10 pro-family groups, which sent a collection of letters to the retailer on May 30, 2003, asking for removal of the magazines from the check-out aisles. Each group stressed the action's goal was to protect families and children.

“A large percentage of your customer base does not appreciate having the kinds of sexually explicit (cover-page) headlines touted by these publications staring them (or their children or other family members) in the face as they wait to pay for their purchases,” wrote Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, to Lee Scott, head of the Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer, which had $244.5 billion dollars in sales last year.

“We have heard from many, many people regarding how offensive they find such publications staring them and their children in the face as they make their family purchases at their local Wal-Marts,” wrote Concerned Women for America President Sandy Rios.

The letters were sent to Wal-Mart thanking them for its early May decision to stop selling three sexually suggestive men’s magazines, Maxim, FHM and Stuff.

“However, of greater concern than what magazines are available to willing customers is the question of what magazines are forced upon unwilling customers by being aggressively displayed in the check-out lanes of your stores,” wrote Family Research Council President Kenneth Connor.