Sandwich arrest stirs debate over eating in stores

How many times do I walk around a grocery store and see empty containers and bags laying around....I am sure people paid for those!!! Maybe they forgot.

This is a comon sense issue and the store has an over reaction. This is like getting a speeding ticket for going 66 in a 65.

I read once to stop compulsive shopping at a food store, always go after you have eaten. It has helped me shop and buy healthy.

To the person that said he eats while shopping including grapes...could he explain how he pays for the grapes he has eaten? Grapes are usually sold by the pound.....if they are still attached to the bunch of what's you're buying! He "steals" them by eating them, getting rid of the evidence.

iT IS ALL ABOUT YOUR INTENTIONS!!!!! I don't think it is a big deal to eat and drink as you shop just as long as you pay for the items when checking out. Why should one person ruin it for everyone? Most people intend on paying for the items..and the ones that weren't..well...probably would steal anyways. I have taken my daughter to the shoe store and let her wear the shoes while I took the box to the cash register to check-out. There is no difference.

These people obviously have no self control. If you're that hungry, before you start shopping, find something you want to eat and buy it. Then you can eat it and flash your receipt if you're asked about it..and there won't be any "forgetting" to pay. If someone eats something and doesn't have enough to pay for it, they're just going to "forget" about it. And I agree with D, how are you going to pay for grapes you've already eating? And that goes for anything that is measured by weight.

I'll tell you what's even grosser and I've seen it a number of times: people "sampling" from a salad bar. Just picking up food with their fingers or even eating right off the spoon.

Probably the single most important marker for success in life is being able to delay gratification. "But I was hungry" Well, it's OK to be hungry for a while.

Grapes = no. They usually need to be weighed. The more you eat, the less they weigh, and the less you pay. It's stealing.

How do you manage to "forget" a wrapper to something you just ate? That should be the first thing to go through the checkout.

I've never eaten while walking around the grocery store but, I also don't see a problem with doing so as long as it gets paid for afterwards. I used to see it all the time - empty candy wrappers and juice boxes for kids.
Some people need to: young children, people with diabetes/other illnesses, etc etc.

I have diabetes, and usually I plan pretty well, but there has been a time or two when I absolutely had to open a juice in the store and drink it on the spot. Eating a whole sandwich, though...that's a little different. Doesn't sound like a real urgent urgency emergency situation to me. I don't know how you can eat a whole sandwich and then "forget" you ate it.

First off, she was pregnant and had #$%$ sandwich. We're not talking about a person who walked out with #$%$0 video game. I agree, maybe the best way to avoid this situation would have been to go to the registers, pay for said sandwich, then continue shopping with the receipt. When I worked at a grocery store, people would eat things, and leave their empty wrappers all over the store to try and "hide" them. The store loses money that way. Things like vegetables and fruits need to be weighed at the register, so don't eat those in the store. People who eat and don't pay make it difficult for everyone else. If you pay for it, then it's not that big of a deal.

people are missing the point. the moral lesson here is that you should pay before consuming anything to avoid confusion or embarrassment later on. it's plain and simple. don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time.

It's called self control and common sense, both of which are in short supply now days. We have become a nation where no one wants to be responsible for their own actions- smakers sue because the cigarettes they chose to smoke made them sick, diners sue because the hot coffee they just watched be poured steaming into their cup burned their mouth, shoppers sue because the store arrested them for not paying for what they ate in the store. Don't want to be arrested, don;t eat it if it's not paid for. Personal responsibility- this was no ones fault but the ones who chose to eat something they hadn't paid for. The store had no way of knowing what their intentions werre and EVERYONE who gets stopped for shoplifting will immediately scream "I want to pay!" to keep from being arrested. Bet these people learned not to eat the merchandise without paying!

Eating something you didn't pay for is, at best, ill-mannered; where you were when you ate it is irrelevant, i.e., in the store or out. You always run the risk of forgetting to pay for the item, especially if you consume it at the beginning of a long shopping spree. Arresting the couple may have been over-kill; it's easy enough for the officers to run the couple for any wants, warrants, probation violations, or arrest records. If they're local and clean, take their address, make them pay for the food, ROR, write the report, and let the DA decide whether or not to charge them. Having their 2-year old taken away by CWS is definitely over-the-top; the i-diot who authorized this or allowed it to happen should be fired. Why were both arrested? If the wife ate the sandwich, she alone should have been arrested (which I still don't agree with) while the husband/father takes care of the child. Not a smart move by either the police or Safeway; as the manager-on-duty, after calling the police, he/she should have given the couple the benefit of the doubt, ask them to pay for the sandwich, shake hands, and say 'good-night'...another i-diot move that leads to bad publicity.

I don't see the big deal about opening the smaller drinks as long as you pay for it. I once saw a sign for it actually. Said something like, "Drink as you shop. Pay at check out."

You pay and THEN you eat! If I just can't wait for that pop or that candy it gets paid for before it gets opened and I don't need it THAT bad. I raised my sons to know that it was wrong- stealing- to eat something in the store that wasn't paid for. They were expected to wait for their treats and if they thre a fit the treat didn;t get bought. I myself have seen too many times someone eating while walking around and then burying the wrapper in their cart only to "forget" it at checkout. I have turned people in for it! Stealing is stealing, no matter what your "intentions" were. Pay first and then scarf. My food dollar buys less and less in part because of these kind of people. We are ALL paying for her sandwiches! (And why did her husband need one so bad?)

Three points:

1. You really shouldn't be opening or using any product in a store (not a restaurant) before you've paid for it. There might be some exception, but until you've paid for it, it's not yours. (It's even worse if the item is something you buy by weight.)

2. If for some reason (health, screaming child, etc.), you decide to eat your food in the store, put the wrapper IN THE CART, not in your pocket.

3. The store was TECHNICALLY right to detain this couple for shoplifting...but they did overreact. The store should have given them the benefit of the doubt and let them pay.

So to recap, the couple was wrong to eat in the store, and what they did was technically shoplifting, but was it really necessary to call the police over a couple of sandwiches?

if you see someone doing this in a store and just watch them for a bit you will see that they basicly don't give a crap that what they did is wrong and believe me they know it was wrong

I have seen people sample grapes at the store where I shop. Also have seen people reading magazines. There is a place to sit so the people take the magazines and papers from the rack, read them, then return them. I would not have the guts to do anything like that. Years ago if you broke a bottle in the store you had to pay for it, now all they say is oops.

As someone who worked in a grocery store for two years, take it from me, it's not okay and it's not acceptable. I can't tell you how many times people in my store would open something before paying and then realize when they got to the counter that they forgot their wallet or their card gets declined, etc. And then what? The worst are the customers who will grab an apple from the produce section, eat it while shopping and then hand you the core at the register and expect you to ring them up for it despite the fact that most produce items are priced based on WEIGHT and basically what you just did was stealing.

It's incredibly arrogant and rude to pull such a stunt and customers like that were mine (and all of my co-workers) least favorite. If you want to avoid an incident like the couple in this article DON'T EAT THINGS BEFORE PAYING FOR THEM.