Tony Boniferro was pretty shocked by what he saw during his visit to Rick’s Outlet in the Market Mall Thursday morning.
There, in a glass display case, sat a Zippo-style lighter - bearing a swastika.
“I was just kind of looking around, and it was right there - it’s right in the display case right when you walk in. It’s fairly noticeable,” he said.
Boniferro is in disbelief that a local store would sell merchandise bearing Nazi symbolism in 2019.
“More and more it’s almost like this kind of behaviour is becoming more acceptable,” he said. “It’s almost like people are forgetting about what actually happened in the past.”
A couple of hours later, Jeff Arbus - who has served in numerous leadership roles within the local Beth Jacob Synagogue over the years - walks into Rick’s Outlet.
He happened to be at the Market Mall when he was contacted by SooToday.
Arbus confirmed the presence of Nazi-themed lighters over the phone while he was in the store.
“There it is, I see it,” said Arbus. “There’s two of them, actually.”
“I’m rather speechless right now.”
Moments before spotting the merchandise, Arbus told SooToday that the Nazi symbol is “in incredibly bad taste.”
“The possibility is there that a person doesn’t know what it is that they’re putting in their window, but I highly doubt it - that’s a commonly known symbol, and it stands for everything that the Canadian and American and British and French and Allied armies fought against in the war, that veterans fought against, that Canadian soldiers and armed forces personnel - men and women - died to fight, and it stood for the destruction of over six million people, the slaughter of over six million people.”
“So it’s a stunning display of ignorance and bad taste.”
Arbus has expressed interest in speaking with the owner of Rick’s Outlet.
In the meantime, Arbus says he intends on taking a photo of the articles of Nazi symbolism and reporting it to Jewish agencies in Canada.
“I’m sure that there’s a lot of people that frequent this mall who would be very upset - people who fled Europe, Italy because of the Nazis and came to Canada who would be very upset to see something like that,” Arbus said.
Rick’s Outlet owner Rick Desjardins was caught off guard when asked if he considered the Nazi-themed lighters to be symbols of hatred.
“It’s not a hateful symbol, it’s a native symbol if you must know,” said Desjardins.
“I’ve never had no complaints,” when asked for clarification regarding the ‘native’ connotations attached to the merchandise in question.
“It’s not Nazi imagery, it’s...hmmm. I don’t know what else to tell you,” he said.
The exclusive distributor's website, however, markets the Zippo-style product as a 'German Nazi windproof lighter.'
Boniferro, meanwhile, says that he has no intentions of ruining someone’s business by going public.
“I want to stay positive,” he said. “I just want people to be aware of where they’re spending their money - I think that’s the best way to put it.”
“I want people to be aware of who they’re supporting and where their money is going.”
