I have discovered one place where Springfield has Kansas City beat. Video rental pricing.
In Springfield you could rent, for five days, any movie you wanted for just $1.00. New release, old classic, or anything in between. DVD or VHS all movies were a dollar. Here in KC the going rate is more like $4.00 plus tax for new releases, and for older DVD titles. VHS is less, but still more than double what I am used to paying.
I’ve been to Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and found basically the same pricing scheme at each store. What this demonstrates is the power of a strong local store. You see, in Springfield we had a locally owned chain of video rental stores called “Family Video.” They only charged a dollar for rentals. The national chains tried repeated to charge more, but Family Video held fast to their low rate. I guess KC doesn’t have a strong locally owned chain to combat the national chains.
That’s too bad.