The shop is well-lit, nicely carpeted, and warm inside. It looks quite nice. If I hadn't read all the stuff on Operation Clambake and elsewhere I'd have thought it was very nice, although IMO the cover designs on the books, CDs, DVDs etc was garish. Very unsubtle. There are various framed Hubbard quotes, etc framed around the walls. There is a bust of Hubbard easily visible from the front entrance, next to an area with leather sofas where you can watch DVDs. This is on the left, behind the bookcases. There is a Christmas tree in the corner here, with Berry Street Kids gift tags (Berry Street is an old and respected, genuine charity)
There is an office, decorated in 50's style, fenced off with a blue and gold rope.
On the right side of the room there are a couple of work desks, and a table.
There were about 8 - 10 people present. They seemed fairly young. None of them was more than middle-aged. There was a mother and two children in the waiting/DVD viewing area. The desks were manned and two women were seated at the table. One woman was explaining a computer printout (dot matrix) to the other woman.
I was greeted by a youngish man. His manner was fine for a sales assistant, if a bit overly rehearsed, but he seemed quite nice. If it had been a business I would have thought it was fine. But a church? Only the Church of Making Lots of Money.
We chatted for a bit. I mentioned that I had done a personality test years ago, but was put off by the prices. He [i[rapidly directed me over to an old set of tapes of Hubbard, 3 for $10.
I made non-commital noises and said I'd just browse for a while. He went off to do other things and I continued looking around. Behind the bookcases, at eye level to the chairs in the DVD viewing area, was a framed Hubbard quote on Psychiatry, one about the inhumanity of electric shocks and drugging people being a way of exterminating them. Considering Hubbards views on those below a certain tone level and what should be done to them, this is grossly hypocritical.
Even more interesting was the sign above it, not framed but laminated. In large bold print, it stated that if anyone was come here to be cured of a physical illness, they would not be allowed to start treatment until they had been seen by a competent doctor and a course of treatment started. Then auditing would be arranged with a trained auditor, and the medical treatment must continue while the auditing was occurring.
I pointed out that with Dale Carnegie and other motivational speakers you see on TV, they provide a sample so that you know what you're buying, and that usual business practice was to let a customer try a sample.