# Security beats man at Whole Foods over EBT card **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 6, 2015, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141 "2015-09-06T02:47:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/21 "2015-09-06T03:58:59Z")
You don’t seem to understand the difference between the man getting beat up as the result of using an EBT card and his getting beat up as the result of a dispute arising out of it. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/22 "2015-09-06T04:00:45Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Just because the guy was using an EBT, doesn’t mean he was beat up for using it. At least two of us are in agreement on that. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/23 "2015-09-06T04:04:10Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > It seems blatantly obvious what the witness is implying. She specifically says the dispute was over the EBT card. I didn’t catch that part. The video is being very jumpy for me, but I haven’t heard her say anything like that, specifically. > [@](#): > > I guess if you want to infer that somehow out of the blue some other thing caused the dispute to escalate then go for it. I can’t imagine what else it could be. Like maybe some of the things I mentioned above in post 12. Do you really think the cashier and/or guard was like ‘hey, no EBT cards here, put that away and leave’. Is that your thinking here? I want to make sure we’re on the same page here. What I’m getting from the OP is that you are under the impression that they just flat out refused to take his EBT and that’s what sparked the dispute. Is that the case. If that wasn’t the case, I assume you wouldn’t have gone looking for several sources to make sure they accept EBT cards before writing your OP. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/24 "2015-09-06T04:11:54Z")
No the guy didn’t get beat up for pulling out a EBT card. geez. use some common sense. I’d bet nearly everybody reading this thread has been in line at least once when a cashier and a customer had a dispute over EBT or food stamps. I’ve witnessed it at least 6 or 7 times in the past thirty years. Sometimes the cashier is a bit snooty and other times polite. Some places won’t even take EBT. For whatever reason Rambo rent a cop decides to jump into what a witness claimed to be a mild dispute. If you want speculation, I’d guess the guy grabbed at an item the cashier was removing from the order. Maybe **gasp** touching the cashier’s hand. Then Rambo jumps in. But that’s only my speculation. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/25 "2015-09-06T04:16:17Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/26 "2015-09-06T04:18:36Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > No the guy didn’t get beat up for pulling out a EBT card. geez. use some common sense. From your OP. > [@aceplace57](#): > > **Did they really have to beat the guy into a bloody pulp for trying to use one?** WTH Whole Foods? Why would you refuse this guy’s EBT? Well? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/27 "2015-09-06T04:18:48Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > No the guy didn’t get beat up for pulling out a EBT card. geez. use some common sense. This is what you said: > [@aceplace57](#): > > Did they really have to beat the guy into a bloody pulp **for trying to use one**? WTH Whole Foods? Why would you refuse this guy’s EBT? My bolding. Neither **Joey P** nor I said he was beat up for trying to use an EBT card. It’s your assertion right in your OP. - hi-fives **running coach** ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/28 "2015-09-06T04:20:43Z")
I swear I did not coordinate with **cochrane**. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/29 "2015-09-06T04:23:42Z")
😃 ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/30 "2015-09-06T04:25:22Z")
**Sigh** someone posted above that pulling out food stamps or EBT sometimes gets a snooty response from the cashier. EBT rules create an atmosphere for disputes just like Food Stamps did. Cashiers have to follow the rules and deny purchases of non-eligible items. Anyone that uses an EBT knows they may get treated rudely or judged. They may have items denied. It’s all part of the realities of being poor. Naturally this gets people upset and disputes happen. It’s life. That’s what I meant in my OP. The guy tried to use an EBT. Somehow it caused a dispute. That dispute was witnessed by a very credible and concerned citizen, and the bloody aftermath photographed. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/31 "2015-09-06T04:28:40Z")
We can speculate to our hearts’ contents til that info comes out. We know that the dispute is over the EBT card but why we don’t know yet. The guard can stop the aggression displayed but went overboard. The guard is in serious trouble despite what the dispute was. He will go down. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/32 "2015-09-06T04:36:32Z")
I’m very glad they got rid of food stamps. I always felt bad for the person having to pull out that coupon book. Too many people judge that kind of thing. It took time ripping out those coupons and people in line got fidgety. The EBT seems to give more privacy and is quicker… To this day I deeply regret not offering to buy some items for a lady in front of me that had her EBT card denied. She kept telling the cashier it had just been issued earlier that day. She had diapers, formula and food items. I should have just swiped my cc card. I didn’t and it bugs me to this day. No defense, I just didn’t think about it until after she left. I had the chance to do the right thing and fucked up. I will do the right thing if the opportunity comes up again. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/33 "2015-09-06T04:42:39Z")
> [@SigMan](#): > > We know that the dispute is over the EBT card While I’ll give you that it’s probably the case, we don’t know that. We know that there was as dispute between a cashier and a customer trying to use an EBT card. At this point, saying it was over the EBT card is as good as saying it was over one of the random groceries he was buying. Hey, for all we know maybe he was trying to buy wine after 10pm (or whatever the cut off time is in that town). > [@aceplace57](#): > > Too this day I deeply regret not offering to buy some items for a lady in front of me that had her EBT card denied. She kept telling the cashier it had just been issued earlier that day. She had diapers, formula and food items. I should have just swiped my card. I didn’t and it bugs me to this day. No defense, I just didn’t think about it until after she left. I had the chance to do the right thing and fucked up. To be fair, you can’t buy any of those items with an EBT card. She may have had a WIC card, which all those items do qualify for, but EBT cards are specifically for food. If you were at a place with a scanner, it would automatically decline them, even if her card had been working for years and she had plenty of money on it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/34 "2015-09-06T04:45:48Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > You didn’t like to the article so I don’t have the whole story (or whatever story the article presents), but I have a friend that said when she used her EBT card at Whole Foods she’d get dirty looks from the cashiers. It was enough that she did her homework to find out if it was any kind of a hassle to accept them (and like you found out, it wasn’t…and she confirmed with me (I accept them at my store, they’re not), and wrote corporate a letter telling them that they need to retrain their cashiers on how to handle people with EBT cards and in the mean time, she’ll be taking her money elsewhere. > > Interesting case with her. She’s quite well-to-do and makes plenty of money, she (and I don’t know all the details) ended up on food stamps because of an accident slashed her income for a year or so. I’m guessing some of the dirty looks were what she presumed ‘if you’re so poor, maybe you shouldn’t be shopping here’, but I’ll bet some of them were ‘what’s a pretty girl like you with Coach bag and nice hair doing with an EBT card?’. There’s ways to get them and some of those cashiers probably just assumed hers wasn’t quite legit. > > As she mentioned in her letter, the cashiers just need to swipe the card and keep their snarky comments and eye rolls to themselves. They imagine that the dirty looks are because of the EBT cards. Most cashiers have a stick up their asses anyway, and, unless you’re Ben Affleck coming to whisk them away for a quickie marriage in Belize, they hate your guts. People in reduced circumstances probably imagine some animosity. Being on foodstamps is considered by many ‘charity’ or begging (even though it is more a ‘social insurance’ thing), so, they may feel judged, when, in actuality, they are not. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/35 "2015-09-06T04:48:00Z")
Interesting. I didn’t know about WIC. I thought EBT was a catch all for most grocery items except booze and cigarettes. Thank you for informing me. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/36 "2015-09-06T04:52:50Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Maybe the argument had nothing to do with the EBT card. This. I’m amazed that so many people take this kind of clickbait as truth, and are already damning the officer. He may have got a little carried away in the altercation, (or a lot-that’s immaterial) but, I’d bet a zillion dollars that it wasn’t for trying to use an EBT card, alone. That quote ‘…tried to use an EBT card and ended up on a stretcher’ is about as germane as saying “handsomeharry went into a bar, looking for love and a happy life, and ended up getting assaulted”. Leaving out, of course, that I had propositioned a man’s wife and told him to fuck his mother. (Hypothetically, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/37 "2015-09-06T04:52:52Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Interesting. I didn’t know about WIC. I thought EBT was a catch all for most grocery items except booze and cigarettes. > > Thank you for informing me. Our store doesn’t use scanners. It’s just cheap registers, so we have to teach our cashiers _everything_. There’s a handful of rules for EBT cards, the big one is, only food. > **[List of Eligible Food Stamp Items for 2023 - Food Stamps Now](https://foodstampsnow.com/list-of-eligible-food-stamp-items/)** > > Here is a list of eligible food stamp items that you are allowed to purchase with your food stamps card or EBT card. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/38 "2015-09-06T04:54:19Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I thought EBT was a catch all for most grocery items except booze and cigarettes. The program for food is SNAP (“food stamps”). EBT means that it comes on a card instead of on paper (checks, vouchers, stamps). Food stamps are the most common, but if someone qualifies for some kind of cash assistance, that’s also issued to an EBT card. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/39 "2015-09-06T04:55:18Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > **Sigh** > > someone posted above that pulling out food stamps or EBT sometimes gets a snooty response from the cashier. EBT rules create an atmosphere for disputes just like Food Stamps did. Cashiers have to follow the rules and deny purchases of non-eligible items. Anyone that uses an EBT knows they may get treated rudely or judged. They may have items denied. It’s all part of the realities of being poor. Naturally this gets people upset and disputes happen. It’s life. > > That’s what I meant in my OP. The guy tried to use an EBT. Somehow it caused a dispute. That dispute was witnessed by a very credible and concerned citizen, and the bloody aftermath photographed. I opened this thread ready to find out why a berserk security guard at WF beat the crap out of someone using an EBT card while thinking, “How did something that effed up happen?” Undoubtedly the guard was out of control and will have to pay the consequences for his actions BUT, Now that I have read the entire thread it is actually about how some berserk security guard at WF beats the crap out of someone using an EBT card **AFTER** the person in question committed battery against an employee of Whole Foods. So, I find myself wanting to ask **aceplace57** , why are you so quick to dismiss the accusation of battery? I promise you if I saw someone make contact with one of my employees in an aggressive way I would be all over them. And to be clear, I am not particularly fit or likely to get in a physical altercation. I find it highly likely WF has footage of what took place. We will find out soon, I expect. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141/40 "2015-09-06T04:55:25Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Maybe the guy did touch the cashier’s arm or hand? Does that give the guard the right to beat him into a bloody pulp and then not even call an ambulance? Maybe the guy did touch the cashier’s face-with a fist? or a backhand? WTF do you automatically default to a light graze, or a breath of a touch when you don’t know what happened? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/security-beats-man-at-whole-foods-over-ebt-card/730141.md?page=3)