I've seen the setup at my New petCo up here. It's right in the middle of the store, so there is no "behind the doors" as to what there set up is, and I would rather buy a fish there any day as opposed to the crappy petsmart up here.
I applied at petsmart for their fish department, and they told me that I would need trained on how to do everything. I said fine. The first day of training I quit because I got in trouble for removing a dead fish in front of potential customers, and then I wrote on the tank, Not For Sale at this time. I was following the training manual I got, but my boss disagreed, and told me the fish in that tank were fine.
All of their tanks are disguisting. The water is slimy, and its NOT algae.