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BrickArms WW1 Central Powers Battle Pack BrickArms Value Pack 2 E.O.D Explosive Ordnance Disposal SuitTadhg Dunlop is 11-years-old and, like a lot of kids his age, he loves Lego. He loves its nuances, how the different pieces fit with the different sets, and he loves shopping for Lego, alone, with the permission of his parents. But at the Lego Store in Calgary’s Chinook Centre that’s a problem. Young Tadhg, whose house is 4.8 kilometres from the Lego Store door, hopped on his bike with $200 in his pocket — money earned from babysitting and doing chores — last Sunday and pedaled off to the mall to buy some Lego. His father, Doug, had groceries to get, and arranged to meet his son at the store later on. But when Doug arrived, there was a problem. Tadhg had been detained for the modern day crime of shopping alone. “Tadhg was in the corner of the store — he wasn’t mashed into the corner or tied up or anything — he was playing with some Lego, but probably feeling a little nervous, because a security guard was looking over his shoulder,” his father says.
“I thought maybe he had done something wrong, like bumped a shelf, and had some Lego boxes fall off and get damaged. But I couldn’t even really imagine why he would be detainedBut I couldn’t even really imagine why he would be detained.” Tadhg was a loyal customer. He had been shopping at the store by himself ever since he was nine. There had never been a problem before. And his Dad, while a Lego fan, though not of equal magnitude, had no problem letting him exercise his consumer choices without parental supervision. Tadhg rides his bike to school. He can find a bathroom. And he can count his money. So when a Lego Store employee initially approached him Sunday and started asking questions, he was flattered. Perhaps they had heard of his awesome Lego skills, and wanted to hire him? He had built a giant Lego locomotive in the past, and was working on a new monster project — an eight-wheeled off-road vehicle. Hence the trip to buy some more Lego. But the nice Lego employee had other motives.
They wanted to know Tadhg’s age. And when he said 11, mall security was dispatched to the scene. Calls to Calgary’s Lego Store to inquire about Sunday’s bust were referred to the brand’s U.S. headquarters. Here is what they had to say: “Our primary concern is for children’s safety and as such we have a policy regarding unaccompanied minors in our stores,” Michael McNally, a senior spokesperson for Lego, wrote in an email to the National Post. “As this customer was under the age of 12 and unaccompanied, our store staff followed our guidelines and alerted mall security.” Doug Dunlop is a child of the Seventies, an era where kids walked to school, climbed trees, played road hockey, jumped off swings, had chestnut fights — and playground play fights — and went to the store to buy their parents cigarettes. The 47-year-old electrical engineer understands the world has changed. He just didn’t realize how much. And it is not just a Calgary thing, but an everywhere, everyday thing: an irrational bludgeoning of parental authority and general commonsense that, in its absurd extreme, saw some RCMP officers recently issue a warning to a couple in B.C. for the crime of letting their four-year-old son play outside…naked.
“There has been a shift as to how overprotective we have become,” Dunlop says. “But it had not occurred to me that the shift was so severe as to prevent an 11-year-old from buying toys in a toy store.” (A Mastermind Toys store near where I live has no similar policy. The employee I spoke to said children, ages 10 or 11, often pop in unaccompanied by an adult to look around). Dunlop expressed his chagrin at the Lego Store rules to staff who, he says, suggested he was a bad parent for leaving Tadhg unattended, because bad things can happen when an 11-year-old boy shops alone in a Lego Store 4.8 km from his front door. Dunlop reasons that bad things happen everywhere. And that the worst thing that could happen in a Lego Store would be if a tall person were to reach for an item on a shelf, triggering a Lego avalanche that landed on his son’s head. A Lego Store district manager suggested another possible scenario, according to Dunlop: what if the mall was evacuated for an emergency, what then for Tadhg?
Well, Doug replied, he could hop on his bike and ride home. He even has a rack on his bike to safely cart around his Lego. But what now for the Dunlops, and their Lego loving kid? Boycott a beloved brand? “Tadhg’s a Lego evangelist,” his father says. “I am not depriving him of that.”He has a better idea. Tadhg can find a toy store where it is not a crime to be an 11-year-old kid.Yard sales and thrift stores can be very hit-and-miss. When you find them you can get great bargains, but most of the time it’s not fruitful unless you have other reasons to shop there. When I built my Pokemon sculptures, I was able to do that using a bulk brick tub that lego was selling at the time (set #3033). I bought about 20 of those at $20 each and still ran out of certain parts – that’s why Squirtle’s tail was so small. Sadly, that tub was discontinued a few years ago and the bulk tubs that are available more recently haven’t had nearly as good of an assortment or as good of a price per brick.
Probably the easiest way to get cheap parts is to shop on BrickLink. It’s an online shopping mall just for LEGO. Sellers buy sets in bulk (generally when they have clearance sales at retail stores) and sort the parts, putting the individual pieces on their stores. Then you can go in and order any part in quantity. It’s an awkward site to use, but I think the best way is to start at the Catalog tab, find the part you want in the color you want, and then find a store that has them in sufficient quantity. (Disclaimer: I have my own BrickLink store.) There’s also bulk brick available from LEGO; usually they’re a lot more expensive that way but once in a while you can find some real bargains. Look for the “Pick-A-Brick” in the LEGO Shop-At-Home Store and if you have a LEGO store in your nearby mall, they have an in-person pick-a-brick wall where you can fill up a plastic cup with LEGO parts for a set price. And of course don’t forget about buying sets on sale. Check for sales at LEGO Shop-At-Home (and try their phone number too, as they have weekly phone-only sales as well).