KB Toys is leaving us forever, but their mess can still be seen on the streets of Brooklyn, says reader Dave.
They really don’t care about the people around them once they’re going out of business.
Picture speaks a thousand words, so I have little left to say. 86th St and 4th Ave, Brooklyn NY
Hey, it looks like you can make a big wheel if you hurry over there.
More From Consumerist
-
Community Raises $80,000 In Attempt To Save Local Toy Store
-
Tiny Terrors: This Holiday Season’s Troublesome Toys Include Choking Hazards, Lead
-
Mom Displeased That Toy She Bought Her One-Year-Old Turns Out To Have A Potty Mouth
-
Eight-Year-Old Donates 500 Presents From Birthday Benefit To Toys For Tots
-
Customers Revolt, Make U.K. Pharmacy Chain Stop Sorting Toys By Gender
now that’s classy.
@ideagirl: Its new york city, i notice nothing out of the ordinary… dirty dirty city.
Whatever entity is left should be fined for this.
@Chongo: You can’t really fine NOTHING.
@Chongo, Con Seannery blames Facebook for the recession: In NYC, when a summons for litter or garbage on a sidewalk is issued, the owner of the property in front of which the litter or garbage is found gets the summons and is responsible for paying the fine. (Under the terms of the lease, though, the owner may make the tenant responsible for cleaning the sidewalk and paying the fine, but if the tenant doesn’t pay it, the owner must.)
Am I alone in thinking they may have just put unsold merchandise on the sidewalk for people to scavenge just to have said people destroy it?
@Froggmann:
It looks like it was probably piled on the curb for pickup and it was ripped apart
@Grabraham: Either that or blown apart by the wind. Happens all the time here.
@Froggmann: That’s what I was thinking, too.
@Froggmann: Since when does KB Toys sell Toilet Paper?
@dorianh49:
Their employees need to go somewheres. It was probably store supplies and not stock.
@Froggmann: I think you’re right. The empty Big Wheel box tells the tale.
@Froggmann:
I dunno… my wife used to work retail and her company *required* employees to render unusable (read: destroy) unsold merchandise that was bound for the trash. I never got a good explanation why.
That might be what this is.
@Lejo Flores:
It’s so that people don’t forgo purchasing in order to wait for it to hit the dumpster.
@Lejo Flores:
Also employee shrinkage. ‘broken’ item dumped in trash, grabbed later.
I had to squint to realize you weren’t showing the inside of the K-Mart toy department.
@Ash78: lol, the people looking over the “merchandise” gave it away.
My old neighborhood.. not the classiest of folks on that street.
I would say it’s awful, but really I see businesses messily dump their garbage on the street all the time in NYC. I used to have to cross the street on the opposite side on my way to work because the FedEx store there would just leave their open garbage bags out on the sidewalks and all the garbage would fall out.
@nicemarmot617: If you see a business that does this regularly, call 311 and complain. Of course, with the current fiscal situation, it’s not likely that the Sanitation Department will send someone to check it out.
If you notice the plastic bags, I can almost guarantee you that this was done by random scavengers. I’ve seen this happen everywhere. However K*B should have put more thought into securing their garbage so people wouldn’t do this.
@Keirmeister: I don’t concurr. I would hate for whatever might have been useable to wind up in a locked dumpster only to go straight to a lanfill. I presume at least some of this stuff wound up being useable and taken home to less-fortunate kids. Either that or crazy homeless people rifled through it. But I hate the fact that so many people, businesses, especially grocery stores, throw away things all the time that would be better donated to goodwill or salvation army.
@Keirmeister: MOre thought? Like hiring guard dogs to watch over it?
@silver-bolt: They could have donated anything that was still good instead of leaving it to be strewn through the street.
I’ve never been to NY, and have no desire to, as in my mind, that picture is what NY looks like on a daily basis.
@Saboth: No, its not accurate. Theres not nearly enough poo
@Saboth:
Ok, Homer. Are you afraid of the pimps and the chuds, too?
@ForrestWhitakersLazyEye:
Just the chuds…and crazy homeless guys.
I don’t think I would expect laid-off employees to leave their locations all neat and tidy after their last day.
I used to live a block from there! That was my ‘hood!!
The KB Toys in Jackson Heights did not leave a mess; I wonder if it’s just a Brooklyn thing?
@Joshua Albers: Same thing with the Flushing, Qns one… I say it’s a Brooklyn thing
@Mistrez_Mish: I concur. The Queens equivalent of any store is nicer and cleaner than its Brooklyn sibling.
KB is gone here, but I can’t imagine them just throwing the unsold merchandise into the trash. Anything good that goes in the trash probably comes home with the employees, especially during liquidation. The liquidators probably take the unsold stuff and it and stash it in a warehouse to be brought to the next liquidation sale that they run. Or they ship it to another store that is still open, I am betting there are still a couple KB’s that are still open.
well, this is a block from my house. now i know which subway exit NOT to take tonight…ugh.
KB should have given the leftover inventory to Goodwill or Toys For Tots. At least then the toys would have not gone to waste and whoever donated it could get a huge tax break in return! Such a shame…
@FuryOfFirestorm: But that sounds too sensible for American business! What are you, a commie?
Oh man! It was probably the demolition and removal crew that made the big mess.
Just goes to prove humans are inherently just as dirty as the flying rats commonly known as pigeons.
My local KB was quite thorough in cleaning out their store. Not only did they sell every item off the shelves in their final days – they allowed the rest of the mall stores to come in an scavenge shelves and hooks. They had very little to clear out to the dumpster when the gate finally closed for the final time.
This absolutely looks like the the INSIDE of the KB Toys at Sunrise Mall (Citrus Heights, CA) that we ventured into pre-holiday. Best deal seen – they had a bin of deflated playground balls labeled as rubber hats. Made Mrs. Tripnman giggle uncontrollably on our way out the door. Little trip found one under the tree.
Those pictures remind me of the way every KB Toys I’d ever been to looked on the inside. Always a mess, always run by inept kids. I could never set foot inside a KB, it made my OCD and anxiety get all crazy!
You would think that with jobs so hard to find that the clean-up crews for KB and the movers for CitiHabitats would be a little more conscience.
I can’t wait to see the mess that CircuitCity leaves behind…
(sorry, conscientious)
This could have been left over return product that was destined to be scrapped, but was never handled due to the closings. Or, it could also be the aftermath of some scavenger activity.
If the KB folks actually left it that way, that’s quite appalling. Of course, who do you yell at when the corporation is already going under?
Wow, that is a big f### u to the world statement. Good thing they ARE going out of business.
That’s a waste of good toilet paper! C’mon couldn’t an employee have at least stolen that.
Sound like a littering violation.
I watch too much TV, but I thought this was what all of NYC always looked like?
@oneliketadow: it isn’t.
There’s an american flag laying on the ground in all that mess. What a statement that makes.
If they made an adult-size big wheel, I would totally ride it.
@DrGirlfriend: Those are usually called motorcycle “trikes”…
Alas no human powered ones yet…probably something about the gearing required.
@econobiker: Huh? I’ve seen chain-driven, pedal-powered tricycles. They can be unstable in turns, though.
I work for the NYC Dept of Sanitation and if I came across this, oh, the summonses I would write…
@DaltonBon Jovi: Can you come to my building and issue summonses to the neighbors who drop their garbage and recyclables in front of it? KTHXBAI
I can’t wait to what circuit city is going to throw out