08/14/2026
FINAL CLARIFICATION REGARDING YESTERDAY'S POST
Since one of the biggest misconceptions being repeated is that this was simply an item that was "priced wrong," here is the hen BEFORE the sale.
The vendor's price: $120.
This is the tag the vendor placed on this hen.
The tag presented at checkout was NOT this tag. It was a $10 tag belonging to a DIFFERENT ITEM from the SAME VENDOR.
That is the entire issue.
This was not a cashier deciding the hen should have cost more. It was not the Emporium changing the price after a sale. And it was not a vendor realizing afterward that he had priced something too cheaply.
The $120 tag shown in this photograph was no longer on the hen when it reached our register and had been replaced with a $10 tag.
Because there have been hundreds of comments, shares, messages, assumptions, and quite a bit of misinformation, I want to clarify the rest in one place rather than continuing to answer the same questions individually.
Our cashier did not change the price or make a pricing mistake. He simply rang the tag that was physically attached to the merchandise when it was presented at checkout.
We are a 20,000-square-foot antique mall with 60+ independent vendors and thousands upon thousands of items. Our cashiers cannot possibly memorize the price or market value of every item in the building. Their job is to ring the tag attached to the merchandise.
Before making our post, we reviewed the surveillance footage, transaction records, vendor information, the tags involved, and the sequence of events surrounding the purchase.
We did not make this post based on a hunch or simply because an item sold for less than expected. We have evidence supporting the conclusion we reached.
And this brings me to probably the most repeated demand in the comments:
"IF YOU HAVE EVIDENCE, POST IT."
No.
Facebook is not a courtroom. The comment section is not a jury, and Facebook certainly isn't the judge, jury, and final say on what happened inside our business.
What's especially absurd is that we're being criticized for posting pictures of the customer while simultaneously being criticized — sometimes by the very same people — for NOT posting MORE surveillance footage of her.
"How dare you post her picture!"
But also:
"Post more pictures and video or we don't believe you!"
You can't have it both ways.
What we have chosen to post publicly and what evidence we actually possess are two entirely different things.
We are not going to publish our complete surveillance footage, camera coverage, transaction records, or every other piece of evidence we have simply to satisfy a Facebook comment section.
If that evidence needs to be provided to law enforcement, attorneys, or a court, that's where it will be provided.
Since making the post, we've also received numerous private messages. Some are from people claiming to personally know the woman — including some identifying themselves as family members — who allege that this is not the first time she has been involved in something like this. Others have contacted us to say she's a pastor's wife and would never do something like this.
Neither one determines what happened in our store.
I'm not going to decide someone did or didn't do something because of who they are, who they're married to, or what someone else says about them.
I'm going by the evidence we have from THIS incident. That's what mattered when yesterday's post was made, and that's what matters now.
And finally, I want people to understand something about Temperance Antique Emporium.
Our vendors are not just booth numbers or people who pay us rent.
They're our Temperance family.
They invest their money, time, and hard work into their merchandise and trust us to look after it. I take that responsibility personally.
If I know someone has intentionally taken advantage of one of our vendors, I WILL always stand up for them.
I don't care if the person involved is a pastor's wife, a politician, the President of the United States, or the Pope himself. A person's title, occupation, connections, or social status does not put them above accountability or the responsibility to do the right thing.
And being a Christian does not require me to sit silently when someone takes advantage of people I have a responsibility to protect.
People are free to dislike my humor, disagree with how I handled the post, or say they would have done things differently. That's perfectly fine.
But it's very easy to say what you would have done when you're looking at a Facebook post from the outside. You weren't standing in my position, responsible for protecting someone else's merchandise and dealing with the situation firsthand.
What people don't get to do is turn their assumptions into facts simply because I refuse to publish our entire evidence file on Facebook.
We know what we reviewed before making the post, and we stand behind our decision to protect our vendor.
I'm not going to spend another day answering the same questions over and over, so hopefully this clears up the misconceptions.
Thank you to everyone who has reached out respectfully, supported our vendors, and understands why protecting the people who make Temperance Antique Emporium what it is matters so much to us. ❤️
— Temperance Antique Emporium
