Update · September 12, 2026
Hours after the ribbon in Tucson, Katelyn Fagan, BAM’s marketing director, posted to the announcements channel of the company’s Slack, the one every franchisee sees. Corporate, she wrote, is “taking swift, decisive, and appropriate action in response” to Reckless Bricks, “operating out of the former Bricks & Minifigs Southeast Tucson location.” She apologized to the owners for “any blowback,” and said the store might bring “renewed attention and negativity to the brand after much of the conversation had begun to quiet down.” In the operations channel, owners asked whether Reckless Bricks was “real or a PR stunt,” and one noted that the “former” store had recorded sales in Patron, BAM’s own buy-and-trade system, as recently as Thursday. In public BAM has said nothing. On its own website, Saturday afternoon, the store was still a Bricks & Minifigs.
PRIMARY SOURCEthe marketing director’s message in BAM’s all-franchisee announcements channel and the owners’ thread in its operations channel, both from Saturday; The BAM Map obtained bothCONFIRMEDBAM’s public store locator and its Southeast Tucson store page still listed the store as a Bricks & Minifigs on Saturday afternoon, with no phone number and no hoursCONFIRMEDthe opening, the streams, and BAM’s contract terms for a departing owner are laid out in this site’s report from SaturdayUNRESOLVEDwhat the “swift, decisive, and appropriate action” is; BAM has not said, in the message or anywhere else
The message went out on Saturday afternoon, while the store was still full. It is signed by Katelyn Fagan, BAM’s marketing director, the executive who answered for the company in a YouTube comment section last week. It went to the channel BAM uses to reach every franchisee at once. We obtained it. It is reconstructed here.
“Corporate is taking swift, decisive, and appropriate action in response.”
The owners were ahead of corporate. In the operations channel, the working channel for every store, the first message about Tucson arrived while the streams were still live, before the announcement. The messages below are reconstructed as written. The owners are not named; the messages show why.
Patron, in BAM’s own disclosure, is “a proprietary application to help manage buys/trades and back office operations,” one of the items bundled into the technology fee every store pays. An owner reading it could see the Tucson store recording sales as a Bricks & Minifigs on Thursday, September 10. Two days later the marketing director called the location “former.” The exit BAM described as history was, by BAM’s own system, forty-eight hours old. The mediation the second owner asked about is on the court’s calendar for next week, as is the deadline for Schneider’s anti-SLAPP motion; nothing about it has happened yet in public. And the vent channel the last owner wants back is the one this site reported on in August, when BAM told its franchisees not to organize and cut at least eight of them off from its Slack.
The word BAM chose for the store is “former.” It is the first time BAM has called it that in anything this site has seen, and it did so only to its own owners. On Saturday afternoon, hours after the ribbon and around the time the message went out, BAM’s public store locator still listed “Southeast Tucson, AZ” at 8110 S Houghton Rd, and the store’s page on BAM’s website still read “Authorized LEGO® Reseller in Southeast Tucson, AZ.” A customer who searched BAM’s site for a store on Saturday was sent to Reckless Bricks. Inside BAM’s own system, by an owner’s account, the same store was recording sales as a Bricks & Minifigs on Thursday. BAM’s April disclosure lists the outlet under its owners’ names, Theodore and Ingrid Roberts, and its contract tells a departing owner to take the signs down and deliver them to BAM; on Saturday the old sign was under a tarp with the new name on it. Which of those facts “protecting the brand” refers to, the message does not say.
The apology is the most candid sentence BAM has produced since the settlement. “Much of the conversation had begun to quiet down” is BAM’s own measure of the past month: the settlement announced August 19 with a script telling owners to post as “independent franchise owners,” a town hall at which the cause of the stores’ losses stayed “harder to establish,” and, four days before the opening, a sworn takedown notice against this site’s reporting on BAM’s own store-damage study. The quiet was the product. Saturday ended it, and BAM said so to the people it charges 6 percent for the name, with an apology for the “blowback” to “you and your stores.” It did not say what the blowback was, or what a franchisee should tell a customer who asks.
BAM’s paper describes what it can do. The franchise agreement attached to its 2026 disclosure requires a departing owner to stop using the marks, return the operations manual, and stay out of any “Competitive Business” for two years within five miles of any Bricks & Minifigs store; BAM’s own Item 17 summary of that clause says three years and 25 miles. Both are set out in full in Saturday’s report. BAM sued Ben Schneider on May 27, and the case has been in federal court since June. Whether the action it promised its owners is a letter, a filing, or something else, it will surface in one of two places this site reads every day: the dockets, and BAM’s own words. The message ends the way BAM’s messages end: “We’ll share additional information if and when it is appropriate to do so.”
It has not yet been appropriate to tell the public. It was appropriate, within hours, to tell the owners the store was former, and to say sorry.
Sources. The marketing director’s message, as posted to BAM’s all-franchisee announcements channel on Saturday afternoon, September 12, and the owners’ thread in BAM’s operations channel the same day, both obtained by The BAM Map and reconstructed above; the owners are not named. BAM’s store locator and its Southeast Tucson store page, as they read on Saturday afternoon, September 12. BAM’s 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Exhibit F, Item 17 and the attached Franchise Agreement, Sections 13 and 15, hosted here. The opening, the streams and the store’s own website, reported on Saturday. Katelyn Fagan’s earlier public statements, reported. The August town hall, reported. BAM’s September 8 takedown notice and the owners’ script, reported.