Edmonton reefers

[Van down by the river]

First off I've never shopped at AI as I'm in Vancouver and they are in Edmonton. What bothered me about this post was, like many times in the past on this board and RC, everyone is quick to make an uneducated/uninformed decision.

I'll state this is a general statement and not directed to any person in particular.

Too often we rush to uneducated decisions. I believe this is bad practice in "Internet forums", aquarium husbandry, and in the "real" world.
We get few, if any facts, and jump to conclusions. It's the same as every time I see a post that says "What is it?" Followed by a "I don't know so take it out and kill it" mentality.They used to call these Witch Hunts. Please remember proverbs like "two sides to every story" "Don't judge a book by it's cover" and one of my favourites.......

"When we ASSUME, we make an ASS out of U and ME"

This isn't against Dez and Wayne as I don't know them or anything about them. We know their side of the story that's all.
I will say,right or wrong it's human nature to deny fault.
Common sense tells me that any reasonable business owner would not fire it's two main employees at the same time without feeling they had just cause.
This leads me to believe their is more to the story of both sides, and may not be appropriate to disclose here.
Prior to this incident, AI had a good long term reputation built up, as posted by reefers on this forum. A store is the result of many people's input and efforts, and they were but two people of a team.
Now after one side of the story we are suggesting boycotting the store. I think this behaviour is childish. I'd like to think we don't represent an ignorant and easily led, angry mob. Don't forget your posts can, and do influence people.

I'd like to thank Beverly for her response:

Talking about not shopping at a given store is one thing. But doing so without informing the store owners of your reasons why your business is going elsewhere isn't going to do much good.

and Rich,

If the store is doing what they feel is right then we as a consumer need to use our own opinions as to whether or not we will continue shopping there.

If you feel you must Boycott a store, base it on your own personal experience with them or provable facts. Also as Beverly suggested, tell them why. It gives them the opportunity to respond to the situation and possibly learn, grow or improve from it.

I'm not against negative opinions on this forum I just believe that both sides need to be considered.

Van

[jgoldsney]

Well just to make sure that it doesn't appear that I was just firing off a hot headed response when I stated that I wouldn't be spanding any more of my $$ at AI.

I discussed the issue with Dez directly before I posted so I had a fairly good idea of what has transpired. Although there may be two sides to the issue the actions of AI have been extremely unbusiness like.
All I will say is that the owners of AI should be carefull as they have set themselves up big time for a defamation of character lawsuit. It appears to me that actions have been taken out of anger and fear rather than for logical and just reasons.

When the situation has died down I plan to contact AI and inform them of the reason why I am no longer going to spend any money at their store. I think by wating untill the heat dies down they will be able to better reflect on the impact to their business their actions have had.

As far as the reputation of AI, my thoughts of them as a top quality LFS were linked directly to them having Dez as an employee. As I have previously stated their quality of service and overall appeal took a large jump once Dez was emplyoyed.

I wish the best of luck to Dez and Wayne in this....

Joel