I have been buying from J&L for years.
Their service has always been excellent.

Well, saying bad things takes many forms :). You can be critical of a sponsor as long as there's a level of maturity involved. "I'm displeased with the service/staff/lack of free donuts" vs "store X sucks donkey balls" kinda thing. We don't allow being an ass to sponsors or members alike, but nobody has to kiss butt. Sponsors simply buy advertising space and get a forum to interact, if desired, with their customers. If they're continually bad and generating complaints, we don't renew their advertising. However, if a member is also continually bad, we ask them to leave too :razz:

I have been buying stuff from J&L since their first year. At that time there were only 2 employees, John the original owner and a tall guy with glasses who I forget his name (if anyone remembers his name let me know). Fast forward a decade later they have a much bigger store now with regularly 4-5 people in the fish room and 2-3 people at the front desk. It must be one of the biggest salt water fish store in Canada if not THE biggest in term of employee number.
However, like any big companies, there are excellent employees and and so so ones. Every company claims they have the best employee but the matter of fact is that in the marine fish industry, a knowledge employee and also helpful and customer oriented at the same time is hard to find and probably demands a higher salary as well.
All I am saying is that don't expect every employee in J&L has the same knowledge or be equally helpful. I have talked to all of the current employees and many of the past. I know they are not equal.