Cronkite News is produced by Arizona State University’s journalism school and airs on Arizona PBS. Its October 1 story went to two independent LEGO shops near Phoenix. Michael Stark, who owns Brixperience, said the controversy has sent him customers and that he feels for the franchise owners. Arizona Brick Co. in Chandler said its sales have not moved either way. The story quotes no one from Bricks & Minifigs. It treats the Salem dispute as one franchise’s problem. BAM’s own balance sheets carry the Salem store as a corporate store.
PRIMARY SOURCECronkite News, October 1, 2026, by Noah Fuller and Aiden Hanley: “Lego resellers prosper as a legal battle between a resale chain and YouTuber unfolds.”
AS REPORTEDThat Bricks & Minifigs customers are moving to his shop. It is the owner’s account of his own counter, with no figures, and he competes with the stores he describes.
CONFIRMEDWhat the story leaves out, each item from this site’s earlier reporting and linked below. BAM’s own locator lists thirteen locations in Arizona, one of them not yet open.
Michael Stark opened Brixperience, on Bell Road in north Phoenix, three and a half years ago. The story reports that he has seen more customers since the Bricks & Minifigs controversy surfaced, and it gives his account of them in one sentence, the one in the headline.
He did not gloat. He told the reporters he is glad of the traffic and sorry for the people behind the other counters: in his view some franchise owners are in the middle of something they never fully grasped.
The second shop, Arizona Brick Co. in Chandler, has been open since January 2024. Its manager, Drew Gregory, said the controversy has not moved its sales either way; the shop has grown steadily since it opened. Neither shop takes consignments.
The story counts eleven Bricks & Minifigs stores in Arizona.
Whose store it was. The story describes a dispute at one franchise that brought a backlash on all the others. The Salem store was not an ordinary franchise when the collection was withheld. BAM took the store in November 2024, and BAM’s own balance sheets carry it as “BAMF Salem - Corporate Store Costs.”
What happened in Tucson. The story says a Tucson franchisee put Reckless Ben’s name on his store. It stops there. BAM deleted the store from its locator overnight. A BAM business coach told another owner, “That was us. We bought out the lease, closed them down.” The landlord’s office said no lease was ever signed. On September 23 a locksmith changed the locks.
The second store. The Sarasota store left on September 19 and is open under a new name. On October 2 its customers were told it is closed.
The courts. The story says BAM is suing Reckless Ben. It does not say that Provo dropped its criminal case against him, that his lawyers have moved to throw out part of BAM’s complaint under Utah’s anti-SLAPP law, or that BAM is suing its franchisees to find out who runs this site.
The fair reading, and its limit. Stark competes with the stores he is describing. He gave no numbers, and the shop in Chandler saw no change. Two shops are not a survey of Arizona, and a feature about independent stores did not set out to cover the lawsuits. Nothing in it says whether BAM was asked to comment. The limit is who is speaking and where: a named retailer, on the record, in a state where BAM lists thirteen locations, saying what its customers told him at his own counter. The right of reply is open to BAM and to everyone named here.
The Cronkite News story. What others have reported. The store BAM took in Oregon. September 23: the Tucson locks. October 2: the Sarasota customers. September 26: the suit over this site.
Sources. Noah Fuller and Aiden Hanley, “Lego resellers prosper as a legal battle between a resale chain and YouTuber unfolds,” Cronkite News, October 1, 2026; one sentence is quoted and the rest is summarized. Cronkite News on itself: produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, with its newscast on Arizona PBS. The two shops’ own websites, for their locations. BAM’s store locator, read October 2, 2026. This site’s reporting of September 13, 15, 18, 19, 23, 25 and 26 and October 2, linked above. Everyone named here is presumed to have acted lawfully.