Our Experience at "The Avenue of
West Cobb"
(long text article - be patient as it
contains a good amount of interesting details)
NOTE:
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN UPDATED. THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE APPEARS BELOW
AFTER THIS UPDATE
Well, we received a good
number of emails from folks who were as perplexed as we regarding what happened
to Greg the photographer when he visited The Avenue of West Cobb (see original
article below). Most were supportive, and agreed that the treatment was ridiculous,
and a small handful didn't really care. Oh well, this is America.
We're all allowed our opinions.
After the article was
written, we heard from one of the higher-ups at Cousins Properties
(owners). He was very apologetic and asked for all details regarding the
event. He called back later in the evening and you could tell he was
"told" what to say, and how to say it, by his own bosses. Still,
even though it was fairly scripted, the overall tone was apologetic. He
agreed that this whole event should not have happened. Agreed that the
security guard handled it incorrectly to the extreme, and said that management
claims they did not hear the part about the photographer having been
"brought in", as opposed to having walked in on his own.
(actually, management WAS told this, but they said they never heard that part).
He did agree that they may need to re-look
at their camera policies, and he stressed that they do encourage families to
bring cameras to take photos of each other on the grounds.
A few days later I met
with the manager, and I would describe her as being "polite in a reserved
way, because she was told to be". She seemed like she was trained
pretty well in smoothing things over with folks, but did not seem very
personally sincere about it. But heck - everyone is this way these days it
seems, so what the hell.
The fact is, this place is
now open, and there are a variety of stores there for shoppers. Barnes and
Noble, Wolf camera, various restaurants (Ted's Montana Grill, Macaroni Grill,
and others), Coldwater Creek, Linens and Things, and a variety of other stores
in an old-town main street setting. That's as far as we'll push the place.
We had actually taken some very good photos of it, but we'll leave it at a
"Draw". They apologized, but not entirely sincerely - we won't
of course tell folks not to shop there, and we may wind up going from time to
time, but we're not thrilled with the way things were handled. Truce,
then.
Shop. Have
fun. Eat. (just hide your cameras).
For a complete list of
merchants, click HERE
-end of update
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
The original story is below:
The Avenue of West Cobb is
a shopping center along Hwy 120 which has just had their Grand Opening. It
is supposed to mimic a city streetscape in design, and offer an alternative to
"enclosed" malls. We've had emails come in asking about it, so I
(writer of this article) decided to go there after work during the Grand
Opening, and take some photos and get a feel for the place.
For about an hour, I
walked around taking some nice shots of the different architectural designs
throughout the center, bumping in to another photographer or two along the
way. When I was done and walking back to my car to drop off my camera (as
I was going to do some shopping next), a security guard (* note, $6 an hour rent
a guard ), stopped me and expressed in a not-so-nice voice, "You are NOT
allowed to take photos of the buildings here!!". I showed her our
Powder Springs Post card, and explained to her that a couple of week prior, I
had called in to one of their offices and a girl (dumb me did not write her name
down) had told me it's ok to do some pics for our small site. Her reply,
"I doubt that". I ignored her, walked past, and went to my car
and put away my camera. I then started walking back to the center to do
some shopping.
As I walked by, I told the
guard, "I'm going to buy some things, but I will stop by the office along
the way and see who it was I might have talked to here about this and clear it
up". Well, Power Woman wouldn't have that. As a matter of fact,
I was not allowed to continue on, and she "insisted" that I get into
her cart with her and that SHE "escort" me to the offices. NOTE
- "false arrest" lawsuit has now been guaranteed at this point.
We entered the offices,
where she told the gal behind the front desk her observations on the matter -
me, the big bad photographer who was going to promote their site, actually..
GASP... taking PHOTOS!! Luckily, Power Woman had things to do,
and left, leaving me with a much nicer front desk gal. She had others go
on a search looking for the general manager, which after a while, we eventually
found. A note at this point - isn't this the way you would treat
unwanted salespeople ( or Jehovahs ) knocking on your business door, and NOT the
way you would treat someone who's admiring your stores, and wanting to promote
it to others and share pictures of it so others can see how nice it is??
To make a somewhat drawn
out story short(er), the manager was what I would call "distantly
polite" about it, but said that it was correct, that Cousins Properties
(the builder/operator of this project) does not allow ANYONE to take photos
anywhere on the property. Never mind that there are no posted signs that
state this anywhere as you enter the property - we are of course all psychic and
know this, right? It is also not considered a shopping center (which is
what it is).. it is an "open air mall", and subject to the same
restrictions most malls have now about taking photos in them. ( "open
air mall" - ok, heads out of the clouds, folks.. it's a fancy strip center!
). She said that the stores themselves do not like people taking photos of
their storefronts. I'll add that later, I called a couple of these store
managers and asked them for their opinion on photos, and they replied that they
would LOVE the free publicity, and had no problems at all, and doubted anyone
else there with a store would, either. Hmm.
I called their main
offices upon returning home, but of course, reached only a voice mail of the
person I needed to talk to. Whether or not we'll hear back from them is up
in the air, although I'm sure I will once my lawyer contact them about certain
matters.
There
are also a few things we question about this property:
1)
Why are there NO signs posted that state photos are not allowed on this
property?
2)
Why after putting my camera away, was the security guard allowed to keep me from
continuing onward to shop, and "insist" that she escort me to the
office?
3)
The security officer was a middle-aged black female. The mall manager is
also a black female. How come I was brought in to talk to the manager ( a
white male here ), and a black male who was taking photos around the center the
whole time I was, was NOT?
These are of course
matters for the attorneys, but regardless, they do forget one thing - we were
gong to PROMOTE this center. We also were about to purchase about $500
worth of items in the stores that day, which we decided NOT to do after this
event.
The purpose of this
rant? ...
We've reached the
point now since 9-11 that you are not allowed to take photos of government
buildings for "security" reasons. Most malls have now shut down
a photographer's ability to take photos, as have airports, sporting arenas, and
other venues. Now apparently, simple shopping centers are being allowed to
"bring in" people who are holding a camera. This
was a Grand-Opening weekend for a much advertised and hyped shopping area.
Free concerts, street performers, and so on. Yet, no one is supposed to
take photos of an event like this ??
If you do, you're carted away like a shoplifter, and treated like a petty
criminal for doing so? Oh yeah, we'll give them our money... ( laugh
). We realize an
event like this will not be looked upon as a major deal to many. But we do
think it warrants thoughts of personal freedom, and a person ( or corporations )
right to tell you what you can or cannot do out in the open air, in public,
during an event. Breaking their law for taking photos? What has this
world come to?
-end
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