Asklemmy

I mean I live in Berlin...

At one point in Toronto I counted 10, yes ten, perfume shops on Yonge St from bloor to Dundas. I swear one of the shelves in one of them would have to be a secret door.

It's been many years since I was there but there's a ski shop in Gainesville Florida.

Pretty much every small business in my village to be honest... I have never in my life seen any customer in there, and yet they have been open for years.

There is a person who sells bags on my high street. He has some cheap chiness watches up front, and actually uses the shop to sell fake watches (which is illegal, duh). I am 100% sure of it because I was going to buy one (but then I decided I would be too ashamed to wear a fake watch).

Also potentially a "tech" shop. Everything was so expensive, I've never seen people enter or leave, and when I asked about a device, they didn't evsn know the spscs for it. How the hell are you selling a computer if you don't know the specs for it? And why would a 32GB USB cost £12? Seems a bit much.

Nice try, FBI.

We live across a back alley from a hookah bar that was called "A Buck R 2 Lounge". There's a shed in the back where all sorts of ATVs and dirt bikes meet up to terrorize the neighborhood/city, it sounds like we live in the middle of a motocross course. They recently painted the building black with purple trim (as hideous as it sounds) and put a new sign up proclaiming the establishment is now called "Rico's Rush". I wish someone would just burn the place down already, starting with the shed...

Lots of massage parlors I'm sure are front for sexytime places.

Pretty much all the vape shops, dessert shops and half the takeaways.

Every psychic in NYC

We have a Mexican store here (one of several), but people come from ~90 miles to come to THIS one. None of the others in town, just this one. There’s a ton of others between here and there but this one is special. It’s not fake documents because I know other places that have those.

Not sure what they’re doing but they’re always busy and a ton of out of town/out of state people come and go.

Car Washes. Over the past two years they’ve popped up everywhere and they all seem to be under different names.

Sun bed/Tanning salons always got my suspicions!

We have a scrapbooking store in town that never seems to have business, if it's not a front it's a way to keep the family from getting inheritance

There's a restaurant in my hometown of Lexington, KY called ""Frank and Dino's." It's owned by Carlo Baccarezza who has ties John Gotti, who was Italian mafia. He's a horrible person and has been sued by former employees of the restaurant for discrimination.

He opened this place just before the pandemic. It's supposed to be a fine-ish dining establishment with authentic Italian. The prices are high, but the food is terrible. It might be passable for someone who doesn't know authentic Italian. In any case, the restaurant sits empty most of the day, and it doesn't make sense to me why you would open a place like this and just allow it to have a terrible reputation that's mostly empty day in and day out.

At least one of the three lamp stores within two miles of each other here. mf i've never seen anyone walk into a lmap store in my life, have you?

Pretty to drive past at night though

How Oxford Street is being reclaimed from American candy shops

Westminster Council has been cracking down on US sweet shops after many were discovered to be fronts for illegitimate businesses. In November 2022 one third of the stores had been shut down and by March 2023 the Met Police had seized £1 million worth of goods from the shops.

The solution is pretty sweet (pun intended):

A new initiative by Westminster Council called Meanwhile On: Oxford Street will allow up-and-coming businesses to open in the sites of closed-down candy shops without paying rent, while also having their business rates cut by 70 percent. The free rent will last for the first six months of the stores opening. It comes as part of a scheme to regenerate central London’s waning high street.

There was a woman's beauty supply store across the street from a place I used to work. Never anyone there except once a month there would be a steady stream of very expensive cars all driven by men....maybe they were buying for their wives.

There is a thrift store in town with a carpet store attached, which is giant but 1/4th full. When we walked in the owner looked surprised we came to look at the thrift section. It was crap, and looked all untouched for a long long time