Display-only croissants

I had a brief stop at the Dallas airport on my flight home from Boston.

It was late enough that most things were closed, but I tried to get some food from a couple places near my gates (I should have explored farther afield). A pizza place was sadly out of spaghetti, so I figured I'd just get a chocolate croissant from Au Bon Pan. They said they didn't have any, despite the several (I think six of them) that were clearly on display. I asked them about those and was told that those were "for display only." While the concept of a display-only croissant isn't wholly unreasonable (and I'm sure I've seen it before), this was ridiculous. (My internal reaction was "What?!?") In principal, I could have asked about some other flavor, but I figured I shouldn't bother and went hungry instead.