Standing on the median beside a street that approaches the mall, he told a woman who paused for a stop light "there's a 10x8 foot, sexually explicit photo in the mall area."
"No!" she replied.
"And little children are being exposed to it," Stopper said." It's a man, pulling off his pants almost completely, and the mall refuses to move the picture."
That's the message Stopper and about two dozen protesters had Saturday for people driving in the direction of the /*Triangle Town Center*/.
He believes the company that leased space to Abercrombie and Fitch should kick the store out of the mall if the picture's not moved inside, where Stopper's family and others offended by the photo won't see it.
"They own the property, they can decide who their leases go out to," Stopper told Eyewitness News. "If they really care, they can make sure next time their lease doesn't go out to /*Abercrombie and Fitch*/ until they go ahead and move pictures like that."
Mall managers told us--this is an issue between Stopper and the store.
Abercrombie & Fitch told us--the picture will stay put.
Some people, like passing motorist Wanda Walker, support Stopper's call to move the picture inside the store.
"I think they should do that. It is offensive," she said. Asked whether she had seen the picture, she told us "no I haven't. But we don't need that. We've got too much of that. We need to be a little more discreet."
Stopper wants people who agree with him to boycott the mall, and sign an online petition. He told us he had about 700 signatures just before noon on Saturday, and he's convinced that he could collect a million signatures within a month.
"That's a pretty tough line to walk," said passing motorist Kevin Flanagan. "What's offensive to you or me might be different. Grow a thick skin, to some degree! Where do you draw the line?"
Stopper's drawing his at the big mall's bottom line.
When a woman told him "I was gonna go to the mall today," after he explained the reason for his protest, he said "please don't do it."
He says he won't stop his demonstrations, or his online campaign against Abercrombie and Fitch, until the picture that offends him is inside all A&F stores.
