Jan 19
2026
More on the Big Brother act at Wegmans
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The story of Wegmans snooping on its customers has legs.
The Gothamist broke the story and several local news outlets here followed with stories that largely quoted store flaks as refusing to say whether facial recognition technology is deployed in WNY as it is in New York City. Our J. Dale Shoemaker did a deeper drive that documented the use of biometrics is just the tip of the iceberg.
Investigative Post has found that Wegmans is tracking and collecting data on customers from the moment they enter the parking lot to the moment they check out.
Big Brother kind of stuff.
This past week, The Buffalo News published an editorial taking Wegmans to task. CNN did a story, as well.
This is not OK, Wegmans. Nobody expects to walk into a grocery store and be subjected to biometric scans of their eyes, other facial features and voice. Retail customers have long been aware that cameras and other traditional security measures are used to make sure patrons aren’t shoplifting, but this kind of surveillance is something else altogether.
This is what CNN had to say:
Wegmans is just one of many big US retailers that now use facial recognition technology, often without customers’ direct knowledge. Walmart, Kroger and Home Depot rely on it, according to their privacy policies, to name a few.
Neither The News nor CNN touched on the other invasive practices that Wegmans deploys that Investigative Post reported.
In other consumer news, Samantha Christmann reported on the long lines Walgreens customers are encountering locally since Rite Aid pharmacies closed last fall.
In her report for The Buffalo News she wrote:
A recent visit to a store on Delaware Avenue and Sheridan Drive in the Town of Tonawanda revealed a gaggle of unhappy customers. The pharmacy’s drive-thru was filled with idling cars, the in-store pharmacy lineup snaked along the back of the store and, with the waiting area filled, customers milled around the store while they waited for their prescriptions to be ready.
I can relate. Long lines at the Walgreens store I patronize in North Buffalo prompted me to switch the balance of my prescriptions to a mail-order pharmacy service.
The United States as a whole has more than made up for jobs lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Here in WNY, we’re still short 3,200 jobs, The Buffalo News reports. If our recovery mirrored what’s happened nationally, we would have added 27,300 jobs.
Online sports gambling in New York state is through the roof, Ken Kruly reports. Wagering for the last fiscal year was $23.9 billion. The handle for the current fiscal year is up 14 percent.
Also on the rise: athletes on the take in service of gamblers. The latest scandal, reported last week, involves at least 39 basketball players from 17 universities involved in point shaving, including two from the University at Buffalo.
The major professional sports leagues have embraced gambling and the chickens are coming home to roost at both the pro and collegiate levels.
Schools in Mississippi, of all places, have made great strides improving the reading skills of their students. They’ve done so by spending a lot of classroom time on developing reading skills and holding back students who lag behind. There could be a lesson for school districts here, starting with Buffalo, where six in 10 pupils can’t read at their grade level.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomTrump’s FBI raided the home of a Washington Post reporter last week.
“Many journalists said they saw the FBI raid as a jarring new step aimed at limiting news organizations’ ability to gather information that the government does not want to be made public.”
Marty Baron, the Post’s retired executive editor, said: “This administration is salivating for an opportunity to incarcerate journalists.” He predicted, “Things are going to get far worse.”
One person not expressing outrage is Jeff Bezos, who owns The Post. You know, the guy whose studio has produced a fawning documentary on Melania Trump, who will receive most of the film’s $40 million fee.
Cameron Carr, a former managing editor of The Post, offered a stinging comment about Bezos.
“It’s not just the chest-thumping overreach of the Trump administration that will crush American freedoms — it’s the silence of its enablers.”
My item last week on the closing of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette generated a lot of views. Here’s a follow-up, which could have relevance to Buffalo.
I’ve long wanted to buy the t-shirt that says “I may be old, but I saw all the cool bands.” I’ve certainly seen my share of them. The Who. Allman Brothers. Rolling Stones. Kinks. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Van Halen. Tragically Hip. Solo artists, too, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Muddy Waters and John Prine.
But, to my regret, I never saw the Grateful Dead. I was nevertheless saddened at the news last week that Bob Weir had died. RIP.
I recall, as a reporter with The Buffalo News, being sent to Terrapin Station, the head shop on Hertel Avenue, when Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and writing a story that got a ton of reader reaction from Deadheads.
All this said, I’ll leave you with a couple of videos, the story of Truckin, which Weir co-wrote and includes the line “truckin’ up to Buffalo,” and a rendition of Touch of Grey that the Dead performed in 1989 at the then-named Rich Stadium in Orchard Park.
