This is an interesting conversation to follow. So it’s in poor taste if an abduction happened in that town recently, but if a young person missing in a suspected abduction was from a neighboring town then it’s okay? How much time are we giving families before we’re no longer going to be sensitive to how they feel? Weeks? Months? The families of those who went missing 20 or 30 years ago somehow hurt less than those of the recently abducted? I don’t think time matters much. There was a very famous NY case that went to trial a few years ago (over 30 years after the abduction) and I don’t think the parents were any less devastated than they were at the time of the disappearance.
Abductions do happen everywhere. As a shop owner, you’d have no way of knowing whether or not an incoming college student is the sibling of someone who’s missing or how recently s/he was taken. I don’t think the family (or their friends) would find the sign funny no matter how long ago it occurred. Sadly, the owners don’t actually have to look too far, or in the distant past, to find a family suffering such a loss.