B&H and Adorama Closed!

"Bill Funk" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 22:34:21 -0400, "Neil Harrington"
wrote:


"Nikon User" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Neil Harrington" wrote:

I have never heard a Jew complain about Christians that close their
businesses on Sundays.

Ever heard of Christians closing their businesses for several days or
a week at a time, for religious reasons?

Several days, yes; a week, no.

What sort of business would close for several days?

I am not religious and had to look this up on Google: The holiest week for
Christians, particularly Catholics, is called ahem Holy Week. It's the
last week of Lent and includes some holy days that I never heard of before
(and I was born and raised Catholic). The only one of those days that's
actually observed as a holiday, anywhere, as far as I know, is Good
Friday.
I live in one of the few states that observes Good Friday as a state
holiday
(lots of Catholics here). I don't know of a single *business* that closes
on
Good Friday, though there may be some for all I know, but state employees
and perhaps municipal workers get the day off or comp time.

I will say, very gently, that the fact that you don't know everything
Is not surprising.
I don't, either.

I was careful to qualify the statement for that reason. I'm not really
interested in any exhaustive survey of businesses that do or don't close for
religious holidays, and if I were I would probably know more about it than I
do. I do care about being inconvenienced by businesses being shut down for
several days when I want to buy something from them or get to their customer
service about something I've already bought. This inconvenience is related
entirely to Jewish holidays, 100% of the time.




But normally, businesses owned by observant Jews are closed for the two
days of Rosh Hashannah and the day of Yom Kippur, but are open during
the week in between. If a business closes for the entire period, it's
still only a week and a half, not for most of the month as some people
here have said.

And if they do close for that entire ten-day period, what is the big
deal?

Other than inconveniencing customers, you mean?

It should be obvious that this is not their intent. Instead, it is
their intent to honor their God, in the way they think is best.
That a customer is inconvenienced is a by-product, and is certainly
not something that they believe should overcome the real intent.
While it may be inconvenient to you, there are probebaly far more
things that are far more 'inconvenient.' Perspective and respect for
other ways might help here.

That's always true and is generally understood, but does not make it any the
less inconvenient in this case. What exacerbates the problem is that
virtually *all* nationally advertised camera stores are not just
Jewish-owned, but Hasidic or otherwise hyper-religious-Jewish-owned and shut
down on more or less the same days, so the buyer cannot easily just go
elsewhere to do his business as some here have unhelpfully suggested. There
are few exceptions. Camera World of Oregon is the only one that comes
readily to mind.

In fact, generally speaking the problem disappears as you get away from the
New York / New Jersey area, but of course getting away from that area also
takes you away from most of the big nationally advertised camera stores (and
small ones too for that matter).

One good thing is that the movement away from film and into digital has
considerably relieved this problem, as it is easy to find a wide range of
digital cameras (and usually at better than NY/NJ prices too) from online
sellers all over the country. But for a good variety of lenses and other
accessories it's still the big camera stores that one has to go to.

Neil

Neil

"John A. Stovall" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 22:54:39 -0400, "Neil Harrington"
wrote:

snipped

Why do some many people out there think they deserve special
treatment? It strikes me they are just a bunch of self centered
whiners.

The OP wasn't expecting "special treatment." He simply made the point that
closing for several days or a week or whatever, for holidays that most
people aren't aware of and don't expect, creates inconvenience for
customers
and/or those who would be customers. This annoyed him.

No, he expected them to keep open when he expected them to. A little
research, he would have know.

He was a visitor from Ireland. Why would he think "a little research" was
needed to find out if a huge camera store would be open or not on a regular
business day? Do you do "a little research" on store hours beforehand
whenever you go shopping for anything?




Since the stores in question (in fact, *all* the camera stores in NYC that
advertise nationally as far as I know) follow more or less the same
practice
for the same religious reasons, this is kind of a unique situation. The
stores are doing what their proprietors believe their religion requires,
and
so cannot be reasonably blamed for it. At the same time, it does create
inconvenience for customers, which I believe most of the stores'
managements
are aware of and apologize for. That's really all they can do in the
circumstances.

I don't see why the store should apologize for the failure of a
possible customer to find out what their business schedule was.

sigh
Then go ahead and tell them to stop apologizing for it. I'm just telling you
that at least some of them do put up "Sorry for the inconvenience" messages
at their web sites and/or on their answering equipment when they mention the
religious closings. Maybe if you express your disagreement with this
practice to them, they will apologize to you for apologizing to the people
they inconvenience.

Neil

In article ,
SMS wrote:

Not stores, but Chinese restaurants are very busy on Christmas day,
with non-Christian customers. It's almost a Jewish tradition to eat
Chinese food on Christmas day.

Or if you're in the San Francisco Bay area, you can go to the Kung Pao
Kosher comedy show.

http://www.koshercomedy.com/kungpao/

In article ,
"Neil Harrington" wrote:

He was a visitor from Ireland. Why would he think "a little research"
was needed to find out if a huge camera store would be open or not on
a regular business day? Do you do "a little research" on store hours
beforehand whenever you go shopping for anything?

So a visitor from Saudi Arabia would be justified for having the same
reaction when he found all the stores closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas
Day or Easter Sunday?

On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 14:04:33 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

He was a visitor from Ireland. Why would he think "a little research" was
needed to find out if a huge camera store would be open or not on a regular
business day? Do you do "a little research" on store hours beforehand
whenever you go shopping for anything?

I agree with you here. I don't think there is a large Orthodox Jewish
community in Ireland. So very likely he isn't familiar with their holidays.
On the other hand, the Christian holidays are so well known that people of
all cultures are aware of them.

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

"Nikon User" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Neil Harrington" wrote:

He was a visitor from Ireland. Why would he think "a little research"
was needed to find out if a huge camera store would be open or not on
a regular business day? Do you do "a little research" on store hours
beforehand whenever you go shopping for anything?

So a visitor from Saudi Arabia would be justified for having the same
reaction when he found all the stores closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas
Day or Easter Sunday?

Thanksgiving and Christmas are national holidays, and last exactly one day
each. Most stores where I live are open on Thanksgiving anyway.

I don't know of any stores that close on Easter Sunday, other than those
that are always closed on Sunday.

Neil

"John A. Stovall" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 14:04:33 -0400, "Neil Harrington"
wrote:


"John A. Stovall" wrote in message
. ..
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 22:54:39 -0400, "Neil Harrington"
wrote:

snipped

Why do some many people out there think they deserve special
treatment? It strikes me they are just a bunch of self centered
whiners.

The OP wasn't expecting "special treatment." He simply made the point
that
closing for several days or a week or whatever, for holidays that most
people aren't aware of and don't expect, creates inconvenience for
customers
and/or those who would be customers. This annoyed him.

No, he expected them to keep open when he expected them to. A little
research, he would have know.

He was a visitor from Ireland. Why would he think "a little research" was
needed to find out if a huge camera store would be open or not on a
regular
business day? Do you do "a little research" on store hours beforehand
whenever you go shopping for anything?


If I'm traveling several thousand miles, yes I do. I collect rare
books and I can assure you before I go to Paris I check with the
dealer's I plan to visit if they will be open when I'm there.

You are to be congratulated for being an extraordinarily cautious fellow.



An email as to when he expected to be there would have solved his
problem before it happened.

Yes. Similarly, if I'd been elsewhere at the time that truck hit me it
wouldn't have nearly totaled my car and gotten me a fractured wrist and
steam burns from the air bag (why don't they call them "steam bags," I
wonder?), and a hundred other misfortunes might not have happened if only
I'd done something different than what I did. The world of "If only I'd . .
.." is a wonderful place. As a general rule, though, I think most people
expect stores to be open on regular business days without having to e-mail
to check beforehand, and this is not an unreasonable expectation.

Neil

"Don Wiss" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 14:04:33 -0400, Neil Harrington
wrote:

He was a visitor from Ireland. Why would he think "a little research" was
needed to find out if a huge camera store would be open or not on a
regular
business day? Do you do "a little research" on store hours beforehand
whenever you go shopping for anything?

I agree with you here. I don't think there is a large Orthodox Jewish
community in Ireland. So very likely he isn't familiar with their
holidays.
On the other hand, the Christian holidays are so well known that people of
all cultures are aware of them.

Thank you for your support, as they used to say in that wine commercial.
;-)

Neil

In article ,
"Neil Harrington" wrote:

So a visitor from Saudi Arabia would be justified for having the
same reaction when he found all the stores closed on Thanksgiving,
Christmas Day or Easter Sunday?

Thanksgiving and Christmas are national holidays, and last exactly
one day each.

And a visitor from Saudi Arabia would be expected to know this?

Most stores where I live are open on Thanksgiving anyway.

Not where I've ever lived.

I don't know of any stores that close on Easter Sunday, other than
those that are always closed on Sunday.

Not where I've ever lived--except for stores owned and operated by Jews.

In article , Don Wiss
wrote:

I agree with you here. I don't think there is a large Orthodox Jewish
community in Ireland. So very likely he isn't familiar with their holidays.
On the other hand, the Christian holidays are so well known that people of
all cultures are aware of them.

He (the fellow from Ireland) seems to have accepted the explanation and
moved on while others continue beat the subject to death.

--
Charles