ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 1, 1997 TAG: 9703030047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RESTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Ronald Kahlow, 54, is seeking $90,000 in damages from Best Buy.
The company on Friday denied any wrongdoing, but a spokeswoman would not discuss the incident in detail because of the pending lawsuit.
Kahlow, who owns a small computer software company, said he decided last July that he needed a couple of new TV sets in the house he had recently purchased. So he created a special software program, took his laptop to local stores and recorded model numbers and prices.
His first stop was Best Buy.
``One Saturday afternoon I went into there very shy and sheepish and I proceeded to mark down all the prices,'' he said Thursday.
A store employee asked him to stop. Kahlow told the clerk he was not from a competing store. But when he kept trying to punch prices into the laptop strapped to his waist, the man stood in front of him to block his view of the prices while another employee pulled price tags off the merchandise.
``I was stunned and embarrassed. People were looking. I never expected it,'' Kahlow said.
The store also called police. When Kahlow refused to leave, he was arrested on a trespassing charge.
Kahlow paid a $500 bond and the next day he was back - this time with a notepad, pen and a friend with a camera to record what happened. That landed Kahlow back in jail, with a $2,500 bond to cover.
``I don't think this is right,'' he said. ``In a free, competitive system, you can't have a system where you can't take down prices.''
Best Buy officials said the Minneapolis-based company encourages comparison shopping but has an unwritten policy against allowing anyone to record prices in its stores.
``We strive to maintain a positive, nondisruptive shopping experience for all our customers,'' the company said in a written statement. ``We believe we acted reasonably in this situation.''
A month after his arrests, Kahlow went before Fairfax General District Judge Donald McDonough, who found Kahlow innocent and compared him to the civil rights activists of the 1960s.
Kahlow then asked Best Buy for an apology, $3,000 in legal costs and a change in store policy. He said he never heard back from the company, so he filed suit.
Kahlow said he has priced goods at other retailers without being hassled.
Morgan Stewart, a spokesman for Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City, said the electronics chain has no policy on customers writing down prices. He said the company, one of Best Buy's major competitors, generally does not mind prices being recorded ``provided the customers are not disruptive.''
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Ronald Kahlow stands in front of the Reston, Va.,by CNBstore where he was arrested for copying down prices of televisions.