I noticed earlier this week that these two homes, next door to each other, both had “No Shopper please” signs on their front doors. I know one of the residents and they said their requests to the Northfield News to stop the Shopper hadn’t worked so they put up the signs.
In January, we at LG got an email from a local realtor, Arlen Malecha, alerting us to this article in Maryland: Lawmaker Wants ‘Do Not Deliver’ Bill For Newspapers; Proposal Would Stop Free Papers On Lawn. So back then I emailed Northfield News Publisher Sam Gett, asking:
Sam, Can delivery of The Shopper be halted by request? It’s an issue because they pile up at homes where no one’s living. It’s both messy and it communicates that the space is unoccupied.
Sam wrote back:
Griff, Yes, we can. Just send me the address and I’ll take care of it.
Sam’s email address and phone number are posted on the Northfield News contact page.
Arlen Malecha gave me permission to use his name, so I’ve edited the blog post.
Thanks for posting this article. I have been against the delivery of the shopper (and other free papers) for several years – namely because I never found the materials to be useful and I would end up recycling them.
Several calls were made to the Nfld News asking that delivery of the shopper cease at my address. These requests seem to fall on deaf ears. (To be fair to Sam Gett this was before he was hired as Publisher.)
It wasn’t until I spoke with the shopper carrier who delivered the paper to my house that the delivery stopped.
There is no better indicator that a home owner is gone or a house is vacant than to see a pile of shoppers and other materials sitting on a door step.
I would propose that the Nfld News change the shopper to a free subscription for the persons that actually like to receive the publication. In the times of “going green” I am sure they would print allot less shoppers which would lead to allot less materials having to be recycled.
…and making it an “opt in” service would kill its circulation numbers, and drive down its revenues. I can live with that, but I can see why the News wouldn’t want to be too helpful on this.
I have tried to stop these circulars from being deposited at our door in previous towns, but had no success. I didn’t even bother to try here in Northfield. (I have also wondered: wouldn’t it be possible to charge them with littering?)
I’m going to have to call up the Nfld News ASAP. Thanks for bringing this up, Arlen!
Quite a few years ago I convinced the Shopper people to bypass my house. It took a bunch of calls, a couple of letters and finally a complaint to the police about littering. That’s what finally convinced them that I was serious.
I’ve occasionally had to do send a gentle reminder when the delivery person changed.
In the Netherlands practically every mailbox has an official sticker on it saying yes or no to each of two classes of junk. I couldn’t translate the details, but it looked like one might be for random fliers and the other for Resident / Occupant mail.
It worked! The Shopper did not arrive on my driveway yesterday.