The signs began popping up at gas stations, ice houses, and convenience stores in the last few weeks – bold, red letters on the front of corner stores that read, WE THANUSINESS.
We spotted signs this week at a Shell station at Brooklyn Avenue and Alamo Street, a Chevron at Interstate 35 and New Braunfels Avenue, and another at the M&M Food Mart on Iowa Street and began to wonder: What does it mean?
We got to the bottom of it.
As much of San Antonio began to notice, rumor had it a local artist was involved in a public art project. Reached by the Rivard Report for comment Thursday, Justin Parr said it wasn’t him, but several other people had also contacted him about it.
A search online for the word turned up tweets, hashtags, and Instagram posts in which WE THANUSINESS suggested something involving marijuana use. But no one we talked to was familiar with that particular meaning.
A clerk who answered the phone at Molina’s San Antonio Country Store said a man showed up one day and changed the sign. She wasn’t sure why.
Then a store manager told the Rivard Report it was someone from the ACSR, the Association of Convenience Store Retailers, who made the sign shorter because it extended beyond the side of store by 2 feet.
“They just crunched it together and didn’t fix what it says,” she said.
Local photographer Erik Gustafson posted to Instagram his nighttime shot of the WE THANUSINESS sign he took at Roy Food Mart in Northwest San Antonio on May 6. He had his own theory about it – “that the stores all use the same distributor and they ordered the wrong size signs but … squeezed them in anyways.”
And he was pretty close to the truth.
Adnan Ahmad, secretary of ACSR, explained, saying the WE THANUSINESS signs should read, “We Thank You For Your Business,” as we suspected.
But why the shorthand version? Why squeeze out K-Y-O-U-F-O-R-Y-O-U-R-B? Is this the beginning of the end, or just the middle?
Some of the letters were removed, Ahmad said, when the signage at all of their 240 member stores throughout the San Antonio area were recently shortened from 20 feet to 10.
“We are currently printing new stickers,” Ahmad said. “We just told them to print them last week, and they are printing now. But it takes longer to put them up because he has to go to each and every store.
“That’s why it doesn’t make any sense right now. There’s nothing in the meaning in there. We know it doesn’t make any sense. Within month or so, we will get done with that.”
We thank you for your understanding, and as always, WE THANUSINESS.
Bizarre that it isn’t a creative marketing ploy but, instead, a stupid mistake.
WE THANK YOU
Also fits and doesnt need a 2nd printing.
I’ve been wondering! Thanks for clearing up a local mystery!
Here’s the problem…instead of businesses going to professional sign shops and taking the advice of people who are real sign makers and designers, they have someone in their office who knows zero about signs coordinate signage through the cheapest vinyl or digital print place they can find, and they end up with some garbage like this. The place to go for a decent sign is a respectable, established sign person, then take THEIR advice for what will work best in your situation, instead of insisting they do your idea, which, since they’re trained in the business and you are not, will not end up nearly as good as if you just let them handle it – kinda like with electricians and plumbers. The general public, including most business owners, do not know a good sign from a bad sign, but a good sign will boost your business by being more effective, and a bad sign will make you look like a cheap, sketchy operation – like these.
A drawback, as shown by numerous owner-designed signs around town, is that business owners do not always spell correctly, others have dyslexiaopr other disabilities that preclude correction of mistakes.
There has been for years a sign in the media center of University of the Incarnate Word that substited the word “assitsance” for “assistance” despite many people reporting the error.
Even when professional sign-makers are hired, frequent confusion of English and Spanish or overlaying the numbering system of Spanish-speaking countries, can cause mistakes that could cost business owners a fortune to honor the advertisement (.99cent symbol when what is meant is 99 cents or $0.99).
How many ways have you seen “restaurant” spelled ion San Antonio? Business owners who speak English or Spanish constantly use neither correctly. Add that business owners from Mexico grew up when schooling ended at sixth grade…They may not do better.
How is restaurant spelled with ion?? I have never seen that. Maybe restaurante.
Exactly, leave it to the pros. That is what we are here for. Given the space allowed, and the intent, these signs could have been designed correctly, and easily.
I was hoping these signs had a deeper meaning. Now it’s just *face palm*.
Absolutely
If the mistake was known, why put them up? Could they not just wait for the correct signs?