Retail panhandlers. I’m not a fan of malls in the first place but I can’t stand people hawking stuff to me from their carts. The question “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” is as annoying for its meta-redundancy as its intrusiveness. Ignoring a little plastic sample cup thrust in front of your chest takes more effort than stopping to find out what product is in the cup. And then there’s the guy who pretends to be a jerk smoking in the middle of the mall – anyone jealous of him is drawn to his cart to learn about the “electronic cigarette” he’s peddling. Maybe this kind of combative selling is the best way to get a product out there since legit outfits are now barred from spamming and cold-calling. And for the malls, turning the open space in the interior into additional space for vendors is the best way to keep cash flow positive. But for me, as a customer, it provides a major disincentive to visit the mall. And considering that the worst offenders at the local mall are in front of the Apple Store, if I were the Apple Store, I’d be asking the mall management to shoo away the hawkers the same way a 7-Eleven shoos away the traditional panhandler.