Somewhat OT, but I've gotta respond....
and it's all because our legal system allowed such law suits as McDonald's being sued for their coffee being hot. Now they have to put a warning on a coffee cup.
There are many exapmles of frivoulous lawsuits, and many examples wehre they are successful. The McDonald's coffee suit isn't one of them.
McDonald's coffee pots kept coffe at 208 F. They had paid thousands of workman's comp claims over the years to employees badly burned by coffee. They'd had thousands of customer complaints, and even paid (out of court) for injuries sustained by the public from the coffee. They'd even been fined by several state safety departments. Why? Because it was cheaper to keep quietly paying docotr bills than to remove hundreds of thousands of coffee pots and replace them with ones that kept the coffee at a sane temperature.
The woman who's suit became (wrongly) the poster child for junk lawsuits filed suit asking for medical bills and 6 month's lost wages, after skin grafts and all the rest. The jury, after reviewing the full history of the thing, decided to punish McDonalds by making it more expensive to continue than to change. Speaking the only laguage a corporation understands. Niether the plaintiff, nor her lawyer, nor the judge, asked for a punitive damage award.
Finally, the judgement was substantially reduced on appeal, as almost always happens with these large, news-making punitive awards.
There are lots and lots of examples of this kind of behavior. Companies often disregard correctable, life-endangering flaws in their products because they calculate the risks as being smaller than the cost of fixing it. The Pinto, Vioxx, the Dalkon shield, the list goes on and on. Punitive damage awards reverse that calculation, and that's often a good thing.
If you're looking for an example of frivolous lawsuits, please find a better one. It's not hard. The woman in Arizona who sued God for 100K after she was struck by lightning comes immediately to mind...
As to the topic, you've got to evaluate the consequences of ignoring that sign, based on the laws where you live. It's their property, they can post it if they wanna. Me, I shop at Costco, because I like a business that offers me low prices while at the same time paying their workers decent wages and giving them benefits. Given the choice between an unposted Sam's Club and a posted Costco, I'd shop at the Costco. Why? Because while I dislike Costco's firearms policy, I dislike WalMart's policies and practices even more. You've got to make your choices, and there aren't any perfect ones.
--Shannon