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Wal-Mart Removes Racing T-shirts from Canadian Store Shelves

Friday 02nd of November 2007 08:07:47 PM

Because street racing is illegal in Canada, US retailer Wal-Mart removed T-Shirts for children that promote street racing and said the shirts were never to have been sold in Canadian stores in the first place. "Given recent issues with street racing and our intention to be highly sensitive to such an important issue ... we will not be restocking the [street racing T-shirts] in the future given the sensitivity around the issue,” said Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Andrew Pelletier.

Wal-Mart, which owns thousands of stores in the US, Canada, as well as the Asda chain in the UK sells over 80,000 items in Canadian stores alone, which leaves very little time to make sure all items being sold should be sold. For its efforts, many in Canadian law enforcement are thrilled that Wal-mart pulled the shirts as quickly as they did.

"We have a problem in society right now where this activity [street racing] is being glorified — from movies like 'The Fast and the Furious' to video games and even TV ads for new cars. I think we’re going to see increasing public backlash to stuff that glamorises street racing because of the carnage that’s happening out on the roads.”

The shirt in question displayed a race car surrounded by a dragon with the slogan 'Street Racing' on the bottom. The shirt was manufactured by Wal-Mart's private label, 725 Originals. Even though the shirt itself was tame compared to many sold online and in retail stores, street racing has become a bigger problem over the years in Canada, so removing the shirt was the only socially conscious thing to do.

(c)Bart Hickman, www.sxc.hu

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