The Bon Marche's second store was this one, at Northgate Mall, and the Mall's first anchor store. Northgate Mall was the world's first indoor esplanade mall design (necessary because of Western Washington weather), and in this age of Amazon, eBay, and other web retail sites, the closed walkway mall is giving way to 'Town Center' designs, where there's no more roof over the walkways, in order to save money on maintenance and energy costs.
I wish I could go back and shop there with today's money and hope that the clerk doesen't check the bills for their printing dates
Selling goods from these places to civilians were good ways to earn a little pocket money. Especially, cigarettes to German locals
Just don't get caught; many servicemembers, officers included, lost their NEX priveleges by doing that. Then Congress in the '80s made NEX and AAFES raise all their prices to compete with civilian stores, and any advantage was lost, forcing a lot of enlisteds on to food stamps.
Unless that happened at the tail end of the Eighties, nothing changed here in Germany. Most everybody, except the Homies, pretty much didn't associate with the locals and spent most of their free time on base, except to go hang out together at bars. The Homies, surprisingly enough, were the ones learning German, so that they could go out and get Wimmins. Because of the language barrier and general not mingling with the locals, very few were involved with moving PX merchandise onto civilians. Nobody I knew did it
