I figured I'd break in my new Blog here at Drummer Connection with a personal experience from a so-called drum store. 

Today, I drove up to Orlando to take a look at some drum stores in the area. I decided to stop by Sam Ash on Colonial / 50  and went in there to take some pictures, hang with the drum department and bring you an in store review. However, about 5 - 10 minutes after being checked at the front door with my cameras and hand held recorder, some disgruntled drum shop employee blocked me and said I could not take photography in the store. What???

Also, I couldn't even get any sticks from this guy (would you buy a car without test driving it, or at least turning it on? I think not...). I asked for some sticks to check out some skins and was basically grunted at and rejected, then when I was told no photography, so I turned the camera off, put my wallet up (yes,I was interested in purchasing stuff and usually do) and walked out.  

I did stop by the manager's desk on the way out and was not presented any kind of store policy regarding photography in the store (would be nice to post it on the door or on the other 50,000 instructions to customers on the way in the store), instead I was presented with a story about one time the store manager was in a store in Canada and took a picture and had his camera taken away or something...This is U.S.A. and a potential customer wanted to take some pictures and maybe record some audio. Who knows, I may have taken it home, thought about it and thought about it and maybe decided to come back and buy it. But instead, let's just get pissy with the customers and bark at them, then humor them with experiences from abroad that have nothing to do with this situation. Anyways... I deleted the pictures and awesome walk-around video, probably for the better as the place was really disorganized, dark, and just odd feeling. 

Overall, there were maybe 3 customers in over a 15,000+ square foot store while I was there. It was a GHOST TOWN.  The sad thing is this store represents no respect for their Drum Equipment except for locking up the splash cymbals so nobody will steal them. Everything was laying around disorganized, dirty and the shop in the back was just wrecked. No wonder they didn't want me to take pictures.

I'll leave you with the only picture that I took "legally" from the parking lot.

This store definitely deserves The Leary Award ... more details on that later.