Free Markets

B Dalton is being kicked out of the Charleston Town Center and all the employees are being laid off. This news was confirmed to me last night by an B Dalton employee. It appears Books-A-Million will be moving into the former Montgomery Ward space, according to an story in yesterdays Charleston Daily Mail.

This pattern of running stores out of the mall to make way for other stores seems to be getting a little out of hand. Recently mall management has closed a McDonald's and Long John Slivers for a Starbucks. You would think they would be more interested in keeping stores open and collecting the rent, while free market forces decide which is the better bookstore or fast food join. But it appears they are opening new stores with de facto no-compete agreement building into the new agreements.