Dear Target:

I've been a fan of your department store chain since the late 1990's, when I moved to Colorado and the friends I stayed with took me to Target to help me set up my new apartment. Dishes, furniture, linens, groceries: all available at the Super Target in Louisville. Years later I became a dad, and the first outing I took with my newborn son, just me and him, was to the Longmont Target. Not as a rite of passage or anything like that, but because we needed a few things.

As time went on and we moved to Florida, the local Target became my little boy's favorite place to go, mostly because he would typically get a cheap toy or small Lego set or something. I try not to spoil him, but he's my only child and I love him. He refers to Target as "the red store." It's a great place to get what you need as well as what you want. Great job on that.

But then, in the wake of North Carolina's so-called "bathroom bill," you had to open your big, fat, stupid mouth and insert yourself into the Culture Wars by claiming that men should be allowed to invade spaces set aside for women's private functions if those men feel like they're women that day. That hour. That minute. Rather than simply having a Target free-for-all bathroom policy, you had to make sure everyone knew how moral you were.

So that day we stopped going to Target for good. And we're not the only ones who are no longer patronizing Target stores across the nation.

I know this happened way back in April 2016, but it's back-to-school time now, and it would've been nice to go to Target to pick up some of the things my son needs for school: new clothes, supplies, etc. But just like you've decided to make your moral stance such a big deal, we, as consumers, get to respond in kind. So, unfortunately, we've had to go to Wal-Mart, which is nowhere near the same in experience or quality of product.

As your bottom line gets smaller and smaller, you maintain that it has nothing at all to do with your proudly-proclaimed bathroom policy, as though deliberately setting yourself against your customer base is a good business practice. Fair enough.

Just know that moral preening only gives you traction with a small subset of very loud people, and they won't spend enough at your stores to make up the shortfall. Good luck with your bathroom policy and diminishing profits. You deserve them.

Sincerely,

David Dubrow

A Former Target Customer

(Cross-posted from my awesome blog.)