Patriotic items fly off shelves

By Laura Pelner
Campus Editor

A craft store in Lafayette sold more than 400 flags in three days.

A bookstore sold more than 100 newspapers Wednesday morning in about 30 seconds.

Wal-Mart sold flags, ribbons and patriotic-colored fabrics in record time.

"We are out of flags right now, again," said Jan DeWeese, manager of the West Lafayette Wal-Mart. "As soon as they hit the floor they're sold."

Area residents are buying the items to show support for America in the aftermath of last week's terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania. DeWeese said that in addition to flags, the store sold a lot of goods from the fabrics and crafts department, essentially anything that's red, white and blue.

"We had some red, white and blue carnations, silk flowers, those even sold," DeWeese said.

She said manufacturers are having a hard time keeping up with the demand. "This isn't the peak season for flags, they weren't prepared for this," said DeWeese. "They guarantee us we should have as many flags as we need."

DeWeese said the store placed more orders that should be arriving soon.

Mike Juenemann, manager of Michaels Art's & Crafts, 3500 S.R. 38, said he sold more than 20 3-foot-by-5-foot flags and more than 400 handheld, 4-inch-by-6-inch flags.

"I sold every flag I owned by Thursday night," he said.

He also said the store has sold miles of ribbon. "I think people decided on Wednesday to start doing something about it," Juenemann said. "The bulk of our sales were on Thursday."

He said he's never seen such a spontaneous show of pride and he thinks it's great. "It's kind of nice to see people get excited about something like this," said Juenemann.

He and DeWeese both said many different types of people have purchased the goods, young and old.

"I hear comments from customers saying they never had a flag before," DeWeese said. "A lot of people are buying flags for the first time."

In addition to flags and crafts, there's also been high demand for newspapers, books and magazines. Dave Evans, assistant manager of Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 2323 Sagamore Parkway, said his store sold 100 copies of Wednesday's Chicago Tribune in half a minute.

Evans also said books, such as ones that contain prophecies by Nostradamus and one about germ warfare, sold out quickly, and music, such as a patriotic album by the Boston Pops, are gone. He said the store has ordered more copies.

The store also ordered reprints of some newspapers. Evans said he should have another 100 copies of Wednesday's New York Times in sometime this week.

"This doesn't happen very often," Evans said of the reprints.

For many stores, this is the first time they've sold so many specialty products, especially patriotic goods, so fast.

"I don't think the whole country has ever seen anything like this before," DeWeese said.

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Campus editor: Laura Pelner

Assistant campus editors: Kurt Esposito, Dave Stephens

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