Haven't seen fabric torn in recent years. Once it was common for woven fabrics, I always saw it snipped at the selvedge, then torn. Some places, JC Penney comes to mind, had a machine they would run the fabric thru to measure, push a lever to make a cut, then tear the fabric.
That was also in the day when you were not allowed to get your own patterns out of the drawer. You had to ask a clerk for them. Always a problem for me-I learned to sew at a young age and loved to look thru pattern books. Clerks didn't want to help me cause I was "too young" to sew. Got in trouble more than once cause I helped myself!