Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Las Vegas stores see run on flags, gas masks

"We sold more yesterday than we sold in the last three months," Conn said Wednesday at his Las Vegas store, F&C Liquidators.

"It wasn't guns," Conn said. "It was mostly gas masks and flags - about 60 flags, the kind you put on your car or take to a parade, and 32 gas masks."

Helen Dixon, a clerk at Western Sign & Flag in Las Vegas, noticed the same phenomenon as patriotism swept through southern Nevada after terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.

"As soon as we came in today, the phones started ringing," Dixon said. "People asked if we had flags and said please save them for them. We had to sell them first-come, first-served. They wiped us out for poles."

Conn, a Vietnam veteran, also owns two Las Vegas furniture outlets, where he said business dropped in the wake of the attacks.

"But sales were brisk here," he said at his military surplus store, "one of the better days we've had."

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