There's something else for you.
Maybe you've noticed shut off or seemingly abandoned red Box
kiosks at gas stations or grocery stores lately.
The once video rental giant filed for a Chapter 7
bankruptcy back in July, and now retailers, they're left with
those big red boxes.
What are they supposed to do with them?
ABC 4's Nate Larson found out if you pull up
Red Box on Google Maps, several locations still pop up,
but the icons do show that most locations are temporarily
or even permanently closed.
I stopped at several locations like 711, Dick's Market and
Walgreens, which showed Red Box kiosks online, but not all
had them on site.
Most had been removed or were no longer in service.
Or one Red Box at Bowman's in Kaysville was still
powered on and being serviced months after the bankruptcy.
It was being serviced.
Yes, they do have someone that comes out and changes
the DVDs, but they basically told us do what you
want with the machine, we're not going to come pick
it up.
Bowman's says that they hadn't been getting paid by Redbox
for years and finally pulled the plug.
It's been a long time and we get paid twice
a year.
It's been a couple years since we ever received any
payment from you.
It's shrunk over the last several years.
It got smaller and smaller so when it disappeared completely
it wasn't a huge surprise, but we thought it would
come back at some point.
Associated food partners like Bowman's were all told that removing
the kiosk is up to them.
Red Box would not be sending anyone to remove them.
They wouldn't give us keys to it and the only
way to remove it without ruining the concrete is to
open up the box to take out the drill or
to to unhook it from the cement.
Basically labor and costs that now fall on local businesses.
The cost for us is, is it took hours for
the, for the locksmith to drill into that to open
it up and then the electrician to come and unhook
it.
You know, there's a, there's a charge for that.
Nobody comes out for free.
So we'll, we'll be out a few 100 bucks and
then we'll have to haul it off and scrap it.
So have to pay somebody to do that.
We pulled all the DVD's out, you know, all this
stuff we're just going to scrap.
I don't have a use for it.
The 711 that I stopped at had stated that their
kiosk was supposed to be removed.
They saw an e-mail about that, but it was still
there.
And the Walgreens in Kaysville that still has a working
red box, The store manager that I spoke with directed
me to their media line and stated that he hadn't
been instructed to do anything with it just yet in
Kaysville.
I'm Nate Larson, ABC 4 News.