Recently, a pregnany woman, her husband and 3 year old daughter moved from California to Honolulu. After deciding to stock up on some groceries, they went, got lost and ended up at Safeway. While they were there, they picked up 2 sandwiches (total cost of about $5). The pregnant woman ate one, and saved the wrapper to be scanned to she could pay for the sandwich. Upon getting to the cash they checked out, forgetting to pay for the sandwiches. They end up just barely leaving the store, but got 'caught.' The couple offered to pay for the sandwiches, but aparently because of company policy (once unpaid murchandise leaves the store it can't be paid for, and sounds like person can only be arrested or charged with theft or something). So the couple was handcuffed, and arrested, being taken to the local police station in seperate cars. Because their daughter was present, child welfare was called, and she was taken with them. Although they were released on $50 a peice (I believe) bail, their daughter, who had never spend the night away from her parents, spent 18 hours seperated from them. Also, they are banned from the store for a year. Do you think they went overboard?

In my opinion, they definitely did. I could understand if the item in question was a more expensive item that was easy to hide. But it wasn't. And they offered to pay for it. If they had truly meant to steal the sandwiches, I doubt they would have offered to pay for them. For me, if I lived there, and had another option for groceries, I would never shop there again. I'd also want to return any item that I could that I had bought there (anything that was returnable that I did not REALLY need, and was not used/ partially used). If I worked there, and I could afford to, I'd quit my job and make it clear why I was quitting.

Here is a link to an article about it, that my friend posted on facebook originally: www.washingtonpost.com/national/pregnant...


JFG