So, finding a brick-and-mortar store that sells scanners is a little tricky these days. When RadioShack was around, you could at least walk into a store and try out scanners on display, albeit only the GRE (now Whistler) versions they branded as RadioShack scanners.
Your best bet to be able to walk into a store to look at scanners is going to be to find an amateur radio store. It looks like you're near Tacoma, and I think unfortunately the closest amateur radio store is going to be Ham Radio Outlet in Portland, which is a little bit of a drive for you.
Even larger cities are sometimes lacking amateur radio stores. I live in Chicago, IL, the third largest city in the country, and there is not a single amateur radio store anywhere nearby. The closest one is the Ham Radio Outlet in Milwaukee, which is a good 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive. A Ham Radio Outlet will definitely have scanners on display, handhelds and mobiles, at least the one in Milwaukee did, so a road trip would be your best bet.
As far as which scanners to get, if you are trying to monitor a system that is Phase II, most of the more recent Unidens (BCD436HP/BCD536HP/HomePatrol II) and Whistler (TRX-1/TRX-2) will handle those systems no problem.
However, if the site of the system you want to monitor is a "simulcast" site (meaning multiple tower locations all transmitting on the same frequencies at the same time to improve coverage), those scanners I mentioned above might be problematic trying to receive them depending how close you are to one set of towers that are part of the simulcast. In that case, you may want to look at the Uniden SDS-100 as an option for monitoring those, as it is designed to specifically address the reception issues that commonly occur when listening to simulcast sites.
As far as my personal preference and opinion, if you do not have a need to listen to simulcast sites or you are close enough to a tower location for a simulcast site (1-2 miles), then the Uniden BCD436HP (handheld)/BCD536HP (mobile) are really solid choices.
Our statewide STARCOM21 system in Illinois has simulcast sites and the closest one to me is around 4-5 miles, and my BCD436HP/BCD536HP cannot really decode them properly. So I have a Uniden SDS100 pretty much just for that system to monitor (and a few other simulcast systems that I monitor more infrequently).
However, I usually monitor non-simulcast business trunked systems so I spend 95% of my time using the BCD436HP and think that, at this moment in time, it's a much better general-purpose scanner than the SDS100. The SDS100 has a lot of issues still being worked out, and while I love the scanner SO much for its amazing ability to work with simulcast systems, I find I can't really use it here for general purpose receiving in this RF-dense urban environment with strong public safety and business transmitters within a half mile of my home.
So, I'd recommend seeing if you can make it to the Ham Radio Outlet in Portland where you can play with the radios first-hand and see what you like. But before you do, check here on RadioReference to see if the systems you want to listen would require you listening to a simulcast site, and maybe check in the Washington State forum to see if anyone closer to you has had success receiving simulcast sites in your area without the SDS100. And again, the BCD436HP/BC6536HP is a solid radio and my go-to, so see if you can give that a look if you make it there.
Best of luck finding your next scanner!
Justin
