By all means, be loud and vocal in your disagreement of their treatment of animals. If it is truely bad enough, call an animal protection agency.
Pet shops do have to maintain standards. Sick and ill animals require treatment. Fish are a grey area, but if you walk in and see obviously injured animals that are NOT being treated (virtually anyone knows the healthy beat up the sick, be it a dog or a chicken), call the animal protection agency AGAIN, and again. LOL! Stand there in front of the tank w/a cell phone and call them. Take a digital camera (this did get a woman barred from a mall petshop though), what I've heard of happening is the petshop feels harrassed enough, they give over the animals to a credible person (you or a known rescue) and USUALLY don't keep that species anymore.
Really. It does cost them money when the animals die. But it costs more to treat animals they really don't know anything about. And to treat animals they are fairly sure are going to die anyway.....
I'm not the best person at expressing themselves at the best of times, and now that I'm sick, I'm afraid I'm hardly making any sense at all.
Really don't give up. In the US you have options. Call the BBB, file a complaint.
The shop where I worked, I have come to understand was fairly remarkable. My boss gave me considerable leeway in discouraging nut jobs from buying animals. Leeway, was him ignoring complaints about me being mouthy.
AND do provide the shop with caresheets. 25 care sheets at 5 cents a piece is a buck 25, to save how many potential lives? I've seen change happen, you just gotta keep at it.
Hang in there!
Sharon
P.S. DO NOT buy an animal. If there is a particular individual that just calls out to you to save it, have a friend buy it for you, but not before you register your complaints. Ugh, sticky eyes, and stuffy nose, sore throat.....