“We had some in stock, but given the circumstances, we decided it would be more respectful if we didn’t sell them,” Kurtz said Wednesday.
Kurtz said some customers inquired about purchasing flags after they were taken off the shelves Wednesday. She said they sold out the nearly half dozen of larger-sized flags in stock within days following the massacre.
She said customers told her they were mostly buying the flags because of the Civil War historical significance associated with them.
Creative Banners is following the decision made Monday by giant retailer Walmart to discontinue selling Confederate-themed merchandise in their stores and website. On Tuesday, other major retailers, including Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Kmart, Sears and Target announced they would no longer sell Confederate merchandise.
As South Carolina lawmakers continue to debate the fate of the Confederate battle flag on the grounds of the state capitol in Columbia, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley ordered Wednesday that the four Confederate flags flying at their state capitol in Montgomery be taken down.
Kurtz said her store carried two different sizes of flags up until Wednesday. The larger flags cost $45. She said it was an easy decision to make to take the flags off the shelves.
“It’s a fairly simple decision to try to show respect to all those poor people,” she said.
One of her suppliers, Annin Flagmakers based in Roseland, New Jersey, also said they would stop selling flags.
Mary Repke, senior vice president of marketing for Annin Flagmakers, said the company made the decision following the controversy surrounding the flag and the Charleston shooting.
“Our basic feeling was while the flag does have a historic value, in modern times it represents a more negative and hateful time for many,” she said.
Repke said the manufacturer normally sells less than 1,000 Confederate flags a year, mostly to smaller stores, such as Creative Banners Flags and Poles or to Civil War reenactors.
But other Dayton businesses said they had not seen the same demand for Confederate-themed merchandise as Kurtz had.
Vicki Fox, manager of Foy’s Costume Store in Fairborn, said she hadn’t had any inquiries about costumes recently. She said while the store carried generic costumes of Confederate soldiers, they were only ever requested if a customer was attending a Civil War-theme ball.
Glenn Scott, owner of two Glenn Scott’s Tattoo Team in Kettering and the Oregon District, said Confederate flag tattoos have not been a common design request, but his shops have done them. He added he has completed cover-ups designs over the flag because the military will not allow people to enlist who have the Confederate flag tattooed on them.
“Every now and then we’ll do a rebel flag, but it’s not very popular,” he said.
Mike Guidone, owner of Monkey Bones Tattoos and Piercings in Beavercreek, said he had not received any tattoo requests for Confederate flags recently, and had not designed a Confederate flag tattoo since his apprenticeship.
“That’s going to be one of the tattoos we don’t do anymore,” Guidone said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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