If we accept that it doesn’t require the consumption of food, it still requires that the services were secured by “deception, threat of false token.” meaning they would have had to enter the situation with the premeditated intention of ordering and then leaving without buying the food.
Yes we are repeating ourselves, over and over. You keep drawing an incorrect conclusion from the statute you are citing and I keep pointing out the error.
Alright, but we’re not talking about people absconding from a restaurant. Nobody has been served any food and then run out on the bill. Even then, that would be more appropriately covered by a defrauding an innkeeper statute, and generally those statutes will have case law that says if the offender has cash in their pocket when they dash, they can only be forced to pay the innkeeper. At least this is how it was explained to me in some criminal justice classes. Example: http://www.ci.stcloud.mn.us/legal/code/2007/section.915.pdf specifies that food must have been obtained
We’re talking about people ordering food in the drive through and not completing the order. It hasn’t been made clear how a fast food restaurant preparing food has had services taken from them by the teenagers.
In any event, what’s 120 second’s labor at $9/hour? The fast food restaurant has been deprived of 30 cents of labor? (ha)
In this case there would be “deception.” The kids said that they wanted to purchase a large amount of tacos and actually did not.
You may ask how I know that. The statute presumes it.
There is also the value of the food that presumably can’t be sold. Unless someone else wants 50 tacos within the next 10 minutes.
But assuming they hadn’t prepared the food, this is why many criminal statutes have been enacted. Because your contract damages would be insufficient to deter the behavior.
Take false advertising, for example. If a car dealership advertises a brand new car for $8k, I show up and they tell me that they lied to me, what damages do I have? Very little. So in order to deter that, the law attaches criminal penalties as they do in this situation.
That’s nice.
What exactly did they take, what did they use it for, and where did they put it?
You see, you’ve gone too far in your reading of the statute. You need not worry about what section (b)(1) says if the conditions of section (a)(1) have not been met.
Other states may have different laws, but as I have said, the Texas statute does not appear to require that the food be consumed – only that the service be “secured.” I would call ordering food at a drive-thru, or ordering pizza to be delivered to a house, to be “securing” a service. One can “secure” a service without enjoying it.
How do I know this? There are ample examples of people being charged with theft of service for items that they never consumed. For example, politician charged with harassment and theft of services for ordering unwanted pizzas to be delivered to someone else’s house.
Here is a police blotter that describes numerous fraudulent orders of pizza to be “theft of services.”
And another case in which people sent unwanted services to someone else’s house. They were charged with theft of services and several other offenses, and pleaded down to disorderly conduct.
It seems that theft of services laws tend to be even broader than I thought – and much broader than what you are arguing.
All of those cases involve ‘deception’ or at least the premeditated intent to cause the restaurant a loss. None of those may be the case from simply ordering some food then deciding you don’t want it, for honest reasons, and leaving. It is not a violation of the code you keep citing. Only, only, if it was the “intent” of the customer to be there purely for the sake of making a fake order.
I don’t have a lot of confidence that you are going to realize the distinction on this, the fifth or tenth time it’s been addressed, but that is the reality.
It is not a violation of the code you mention to go to a fast food restaurant, make an order, and then change your mind and leave. Under the same code, it is a crime to do exactly the same thing if your INTENT was to leave after making the order, e.g. a prank.
But, once again, that INTENT is presumed by you leaving the restaurant. The onus would then be on the person who left to rebut this presumption.
If you can convince the officer, prosecutor, judge, or jury that you ordered 50 tacos and then simply changed your mind for no particular reason, then best of luck to you because it probably won’t happen.
If you placed an order for a Big Mac and then got a phone call that your child was in a serious car accident and bolted from the scene, you would almost certainly overcome the original presumption.
It seems that several times in this thread you have posted that we can’t know what was in those kids’ minds and therefore we can’t prove intent. The statute clearly says that by their leaving, we can infer intent.
You are utterly misinterpreting the language of the code.
The code says that if a person leaves without paying after obtaining (or securing) the service, *with fraudulent, dishonest intentions, *and it is a service that is customarily paid for immediately upon receipt of that service, the presumption is that they left in order to avoid paying for the service and that is theft. It has nothing to do with the scenario posed in the OP unless there was evidence they came there with the intent to play a prank. Just leaving after making the order for fast food that you originally honestly wanted is not proof of any kind of intent under the code you are citing.
ETA this wording is intended to prevent cases of someone saying “Wait, you mean I was supposed to pay for my dinner today? I thought they would bill me. I thought I could come in next week, how was I to know?” It isn’t intended to establish a presumption of intent to defraud simply by leaving before the food is ever even served. The word “secures” in the code is causing a lot of confusion in that people are asserting that making a fast food order would be considered securing a service. It wouldn’t. But giving the benefit of the doubt on that point anyway, the cited code makes it clear it is only applicable to cases of deceitful obtaining of that service.
Cite, please.
(1) he intentionally or knowingly secures performance of the service by deception, threat, or false token;
(b) For purposes of this section, intent to avoid payment is presumed if:
(1) the actor absconded without paying for the service in circumstances where payment is ordinarily made immediately upon rendering of the service, as in hotels, restaurants, and comparable establishments;
Please find a cite that supports your interpretation of theft of services. For example, show me a legal expert saying that I can order pizzas to be sent to other people’s houses, or that I can go into a Subway and order several sandwiches, have them make them, and then just decide to walk away. Or maybe a cite showing that someone was arrested but acquitted for theft of services because they simply changed their mind after ordering food.
I have cited three examples of people ordering food that they never received and then being arrested for theft of services. Since we disagree on the meaning of the statute, it is up to you to show examples of times when the statute is interpreted in the way you believe.
I’ll wait.
Ok, let’s forget about section b of the statute. To you disagree that things like knowing deception and intent can be inferred from the circumstances?
Under your interpretation, nobody could ever be convicted of first degree murder unless they posted on Facebook, because how can we know that they intended to kill the victim? You can infer it. The victim was stabbed 48 times. A person generally knows that will inflict death.
Your position would argue that the person might very well have only wanted to wound the victim, but the law will presume the intent in that situation.
Likewise, when someone places a large order and then runs off, it is not illogical to presume that they did it as a prank and as a deception.
The former is obviously a premeditated intention to cause the pizza restaurant a loss. The latter isn’t. Show me a cite for someone who has been arrested for the latter. Any cites about the former are entirely irrelevant. Ordering a pizza to someone elses house as a joke is a crime against the pizza restaurant if not the recipient. Changing your mind for unknown reasons while waiting in Subway after placing your order, which you originally, honestly intended to buy at the time of the order, is not.
Cite, please.
That analogy is really stretching things. But in essence you are right, in a way. The difference between premeditated murder or self defense could not be established merely by the number of wounds the victim had. I never brought Facebook up as an example of how to prove intent it was a prank. It might be the evidence indicates it was intentional because the same car has done it repeatedly in the same area outraging restauranteurs and resulting in many complaints to police.
It is not reasonable to call it a theft of services for making a fast food order and then leaving for unknown circumstances. There is no assumption in that case, that your intention was to steal services. And since no services were actually stolen, no intention can be assumed. Its a circle of irrational logic trying to apply that statute to the situation described in the OP.
The best evidence of your side of the argument, which I hesitate to even point out since it would only further irrational as well as rational analysis, is that they found out about this by listening to a police scanner. That means the police were on the way to investigate. That means there was, in their minds, evidence of an intent to leave after making the order. But even this, which has been surprisingly overlooked through the discussion, is not evidence they pressed charges once they got there and investigated.
I’m afraid that when it is you who is making the absurd claim the burden is on you to provide a cite that proves it. The one you have cited doesn’t prove the absurd claim. I remain, until then, as this thread is really going nowhere fast.
Absurd is in the eye of the beholder, so the rule around here is generally, “those making a claim are obliged to support it; it is not the job of other people to disprove someone else’s claims.” If your claim is not absurd, in fact you seem to argue that it is common sense, then certainly there must be proof of it.
If you cannot provide citations for your arguments, then the thing stands for itself.
Right, and it is you who is making the claim. You claim it is a crime under various statutes to make a fast food order and then leave without accepting the order. But the fact is that isn’t a crime under any statute that has been provided thus far. So far the only restaurant operator that has weighed in said they called their state’s attorney general about this and there was no criminal code they could really pursue. You provided a cite about Texas theft of services code that doesn’t apply to the question. And now you are demanding a cite to prove it doesn’t apply. In some cases, absurd is in the eye of any reasonable beholder.