But here’s a summation for those who don’t want to read the link. A couple went to a Safeway supermarket to buy some groceries with their two-year-old daughter. While they were shopping, the mother (who is pregnant) was hungry so she took a sandwich and ate it but kept the wrapper so she could pay for it when they checked out.
She says they forgot to pay for the sandwich. The store caught them and followed their normal routine for shoplifters, which is to call the police. The police came and arrested the couple and child welfare services came and took the daughter while the parents were in custody. The parents have been released and the daughter is back with them.
Now to me, this appears to be a fairly routine incident. I accept that the couple probably honestly forgot to pay for the sandwich but the fact is that they did take it without paying for it. They can explain it to the judge. So I don’t see where the store did anything outrageous in treating them like shoplifters.
But some people are apparently outraged by what happened. They seem to feel it was terrible that the couple had to go through all this over a five dollar sandwich. Especially the part where their child was taken from them.
Safeway apparently has bowed to this outrage because it has stated it will not be pressing charges. And they have apologized to the couple. But the couple is considering filing a lawsuit against the store.
I guess I’m scratching my head over this. I don’t see where Safeway had anything to apologize about. The couple did in fact shoplift, something which they concede, even if it was inadvertent. So they were treated like shoplifters. Nobody swore at them or threatened them or slapped them around in the back room. They were detained and turned over to the police.
Obviously it was unfortunate that the girl had to be separated from her parents. But do we want to say that anyone who brings a child along is immune from being arrested?
Isn’t the obvious question here, why was it considered necessary to arrest the couple?
Could they not be charged, summonsed to appear in court and tried without any arrest? I mean, they’re hardly likely to leave town and go on the run to avoid the charge (and in any event arresting them doesn’t prevent that, since they would certainly get bail shortly after being arrested).
So why were they arrested? Is an arrest considered a necessary humiliation for everyone charged with an offence, however trivial, (and, in this case, for everyone’s child as well) and even though we know a proportion of them will be acquitted?
So, can anybody enlighten me? What was the point of the arrest? Am I the only person suprised that they were arrested?
It sounds functionally equivalent to, say, travelling on public transport without a ticket which (in my city anyway) is dealt with perfectly adequately by taking the culprit’s details and ID and issuing them their penalty later.
Oops I forgot - sorry - here’s the £5 (yes live in the UK)
Yes miss but this is the 3rd…6th…10th time you forgot - so sorry back.
I used to work in a superstore and you would be surprised how many people just snack and don’t intend to pay or give the kids a can of juice and some food to keep them quiet and ‘forget to pay’ - so to me the store did the correct thing - if the policy is to prosecute then it’s the store’s policy not the staff who work there.
So no I don’t think it’s up to the store to say sorry – you eat something and keep the rapper when you empty the basket or trolley and ‘forget’ that that rapper at the bottom of the basket was yours then it’s not a mistake it’s a choice – why should the store pay for you because you bring your family for a feast every time you enter the store.
Tell it to the judge.
Oh and being a diabetic I have had a Hypo in a store and picked up something to stableise my condition and kept the rapper/can/empty and paid for it because it was in my trolly to remind me and I paid for it.
except it isn’t in this case. treating your customers like criminals doesn’t make good business sense. yes, you want to eat in the store, you’re responsible for remembering to pay. still, draconian measures are
Heck I almost did this with a tank of gas once. I filled up and absent mindedly got in the car and started to drive off. The attended came running and I realized what I almost did, apologized profusely, turned several shades of red, and paid for the gas.
I had $50 worth of gas. There was no intent to steal it.
The store owes the couple an apology for wasting nearly their entire day and having their child taken from them for a single minute over $5 in sandwiches.
I think it’s unfortunate that it escalated to the point that the child was taken away, but I don’t think Safeway did anything wrong. At least from the little we know.
I’m sure that “oops, we meant to pay” is a pretty common excuse they must hear all the time.
It would never occur to me to eat something before paying for it. It’s a store, not a restaurant. If I did unwrap and eat something in the store, I’d be looking around nervously for the cops to come after me right then. But I gather this is something that people have widely differing opinions on. From the article:
I’d be interested to know if there are laws, or official store policies, about eating before paying.
It’s pretty obviously illegal. It’s somebody else’s property, and the owner is legally permitted to refuse to sell you the product even after you bring it to the counter.
I’ve never understood this practice either. Short of a diabetic incident, I can’t imagine having to eat something being such an emergency that it couldn’t wait until the shopping excursion was over.
I’ve seen people eating their groceries/snack food as they shop and then paying for the empty container. It’s not the greatest shock to me at all, but I think it is unambiguously boorish. Yeah, if you’ve got a blood sugar issue that’s a different story, but I’m going to wager most people don’t. (It’s sort of like I can forgive public urination in some emergency scenario–but just like in that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry is busted for it, he tries to make it seem an emergency when it clearly wasn’t, and that’s the norm–real emergencies requiring you do that sort of thing are super rare.)
My stepmonster used to do this (probably still does): open a bag of chips and munch on 'em while shopping, then pay for the empty bag along with the rest of the groceries. I found it embarrassing. AFAIC, if you haven’t paid for it yet, then eating it in the store is stealing. Like other posters have said, short of being diabetic, I can’t think of any good reason I can’t wait a few minutes until I get home to eat something. But then again, my stepmonster grazes constantly; I am not that kind of snacker. I tend to eat full meals and very little in between.
I think the store in this case went a tad overboard. I see no reason the cops needed to be called and the kid taken. That’s a bit over the top. Why couldn’t the store just let them pay and then let them go on their way? But I still don’t think it’s necessary for the store to apologize. They were following protocol as established by store policy, there was no lasting harm done to anyone and maybe these people will stop and think from now on, “Is this really a sandwich emergency or can I just wait 15 minutes until I pay and get out of the store?”
I guess I’m having trouble mustering up empathy for anyone who just HAS to eat right this goddamn second (unless you’re diabetic or have some sort of metabolic disorder). To me, it’s sort of like texting while driving. There is no text emergency that’s worth your safety in terms of not focusing on the task at hand, which is arriving safely in the car without killing somebody. I can’t think of any snack emergency that’s so pressing, one must risk prosecution or die of starvation. You know? The situation just isn’t that dire, so I question the judgment of these people who couldn’t wait until they got out of the store to stuff their pie-holes.
This is what I do when I am out shopping with my tyke: got to the cash register, pay for the sandwich. Ask cashier to affix receipt to the sandwich. Kid eats sandwich while I finish my shopping.
My kid knew when she was three, never eat anything that you haven’t paid for. Nor open any wrappers, etc.
If the store has a policy to prosecute all shoplifters, the manager may not have much discretion. Otherwise, I can see white people getting a pass with “Oh! I forgot.” while the brown people get arrested.
As for the issue of whether they actually had to be arrested. I worked as an assistant store manager at a chain drugstore for a couple of year (twenty-odd years ago). We had an “always prosecute” policy. The accused was always arrested and taken down to the police station for booking or released without charge. I don’t think shoplifiting is a “ticketable” offence in too many jurisdictions. The only time we turned a blind eye was if a little kid (say under 5) opened and ate a candy bar and the parent didn’t appear to sanction it. Anything more and you were risking your job. The company was extremely concerned about the (predominantly white) managers taking a different attitude toward white shoplifters and black/brown/yellow ones. This was in the Washington DC area, where racial politics was really poisonous at the time (think Mayor Barry)
This incident is in Hawaii. Anyone who thinks that race relations in Hawaii are any less fraught hasn’t lived there.
Seems to me the cops are more to blame than the store. Did the cops have to arrest the couple?
I have to wonder, and this is just a wild guess, if the couple was treated differently because they had only recently moved to Hawaii (2 weeks prior). Had they been longtime residence, perhaps there would have been a more lenient atmosphere.
It wouldn’t occur to me either but on occasion I do see someone drinking out of a bottle of soda and paying on the way out. Hell, some grocery store baskets even have cup holders.
