Bloomberg is reporting that the recently popularized Kunming-area fake Apple store is being investigated by Chinese authorities and it, along with another store, has been ordered to shut down.
The owners of said stores, including one Yu Cheng (who claims he’s doing Apple a favor), have been trying to become official, authorized retailers for years and they say they’re not violating any laws.
Not everyone is pleased:
“The authorities should stop these fake stores from operating and selling whatever they want,” said Xie Yonglin, an employee at Nanfang Yuan, one of Kunming’s authorized Apple sales agents. The unauthorized stores “have a negative impact on our products and brands.”
The funniest thing? Yu says Apple stores are woefully easy to copy, calling them on par with a school chemistry lab. We must also remember that except for the whole authorized reseller issue, it’s not completely illegal to have a nice, well-lit environment with lots of stuff for hipsters to do. If that were the case, Starbucks could sue almost every single modern coffee shop in Western Europe.