Adult Mags Pulled from Fargo-based Stop-N-Go Chain

FARGO—The owner of a chain of convenience stores based in North Dakota and Minnesota has decided to pull adult magazines from the shelves, though it’s unclear if the new policy will hold for all 20 stores in the chain.

At least six Stop-N-Go stores previously pulled the lad mags, according to owner Sheldon Ellig, who told a local news outlet that others followed suit this week as well. The reason, he said, was customer complaints.

“We have had a number of people ask us to take them out,” Ellig told Inforum.com, “so we’re saying—even though we have some customers that are going to make a scene that we don’t have them—we have to deal with the majority of the customers that come into our store. So, all we’re trying to do is, we want to keep everybody happy, and we want to minimize the problem.”

What Ellig means by "the problem” is unclear, but another quote provides a hint.

“We’re talking about (the fact that) we’re having people getting involved in drugs and getting involved in sex-oriented crimes, and we’re having all that type of stuff, and where does it start,” Ellig asked, rhetorically. “It starts with the parents having control of their children, and they don’t always have control. It’s not that they don’t want to, but I’m just saying to myself, it’s not easy to raise a family today.”

Ergo, remove the adult magazines, which, Ellig seems to be implying, might just nip in the bud the culture’s slide into moral decay. Eh?

It is not stated in any news reports about this breaking-news item what magazines the chain carried, but a few comments to the Inforum article mention Maxim and Playboy, which are, as everyone knows, gateway publications that lead inexorably to harder fare such as Hustler and Penthouse, and then on to gangbangs, incest, polygamy, bestiality and, ultimately, donations to the Republican National Committee.

Stop-N-Go is not the only convenience store chain in the Fargo-Moorhead area to purge its shelves of sexually oriented magazines. Competitor Kum & Go made the bold move a few years ago "after an e-mailed edict from corporate headquarters."

Kum & Go? Where are the Coen brothers when we really need them!?