[simonbarker87]

Sounds better than a city full of shops designed to separate people from their money buying stuff they don’t need.

Life is about building memories, connecting with people and sharing experiences. Having a variety of places to do that (update: including shops) is nice in my opinion.

[Xophmeister]

> Sounds better than a city full of shops designed to separate people from their money buying stuff they don’t need.

London has plenty of those.

[bemusedthrow75]

> London has plenty of those.

If you want American candy, sure.

(To American HNers: this isn't a joke about you. Or even really that much of a joke, alas)

[andybak]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/04/us-swe...

[rsynnott]

We have these in Ireland, too. Always vaguely assumed they were a money laundering thing; never anyone in them, really.

[bemusedthrow75]

Various hypotheses. Money laundering, VAT scamming, tax abuse, or just outrageous profiteering based on never being around when the bill for VAT or business rates come due.

There is one famous, very real, very popular American candy store in London -- Kingdom Of Sweets -- which is absolutely legit and has been trading for twenty years, having started elsewhere. It was famous in British geek culture for being where you bought all the sweets you heard US geeks talking about on Foothills and Surfers and the like.

And then there's a couple of likely legit competitors, and then... a whole layer of fakery, fraud and shell companies.

[darrenf]

CyberCandy was legit and famous and existed for a looong time, but shut down in 2016 :(