What is up with them and how are they planning to stop this? Anyone else ran into this issue?
Right, I was asking for a specific model, and his words were that they are not allowed to sell it until they figure out a way to stop crypto mining
The real reason behind the denial of your request for the graphic card is probably the shortage of the same. This specific store maybe didn't had the requested graphic card(1080Ti GPU) and seller probably made some kind of joke that is only known to him. This past couple of months the prices of the graphic cards have gotten above average and every store is actually very happy because of the current situation. Their profits are huge right now.
This certain seller that was administrated with the sale of the graphic cards in the time of your arriving at the store was maybe angry with the huge demand of the graphic cards and also angry at the miners (one of the speculated reason may be that he hasn't start mining when the time was right and now is very angry at every successful miner which is mining properly). There are a couple of reasons why you did get that strange answer but bear in mind that the policy of best buy is not the rejection of the buyers. They are very pleased with this current situations that will last ( for how long I don't know).
Try to come another day when the other seller will work there and ask the same question. Maybe you will hear the different answer and maybe the desired GPU will be available this time.