I guess they like to have different types of reading material on display up there.

The controversy began this week when a West Vancouver woman, taking her 13-year-old daughter shopping at the store, came across a display that featured an accessible copy of BUTT that contained, as she put it, “a full, double-page spread of two men engaged fully in a sex act.”

She complained to the store manager and the operators of the mall.

In its first comment on the controversy that has led West Vancouver's bylaw office to fine the store in the city's Park Royal mall, spokesman Ryan Holiday said the company supports its gay customers “and anyone who enjoys the magazine.”

“The accidental placement of the magazine was fixed, but it should not be used as an excuse to limit diversity or free expression as those are fundamental values of American Apparel,” Mr. Holiday said Friday in an e-mailed statement from the company's Los Angeles head office.

He declined to answer other questions posed in a subsequent e-mail. He had initially suggested The Globe and Mail put its questions to a specific representative of Egale Canada, which promotes equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. However, that official did not respond to calls.

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