Apple has halted sales of the iPhone 4S at retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai after a near riot outside an Apple store in Beijing, reports the Los Angeles Times.

When employees refused to open as scheduled, an angry mob that had been waiting overnight hit the store with eggs and attacked a mall manager, according to the piece.

The Beijing store hadn’t opened because of the large crowd and because Apple’s five authorized stores in China had sold out of the devices, according to an Apple representative in Beijing.

While the phone is available through China Unicom, which is offering the device for free if customers commit to contracts, the Chinese consumers weren’t interested in cell phone plans but wanted the devices themselves, the piece notes. They are willing to pay between $790 and $1,070 for the device without a mobile plan, according to the article.