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Free Soda Refill Can Be a Federal Offense
 Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 21:05:09
Here's an interesting story I picked up on today: Quote: On Wednesday construction worker Christopher Lewis went to refill his cup at the soda machine in the cafeteria at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center. Next thing he knew, Federal Police Force officers were slapping him with a $525 federal citation for shoplifting.
Seems harmless enough, but here's what what the hospital had to say: Quote: In a statement, the hospital said Lewis told “VA police he had not paid for refills of beverages on multiple occasions, even though signs are posted in the cafeteria informing patrons refills are not free. Shoplifting is a crime.”
According to police: Quote: After police approached him, Lewis tried to pay the cost of the refill, but his money was refused. Instead, he was given the shoplifting ticket. A hospital administrator even called what Lewis did theft of government property.
So is this a case of blatant disregard for the rule law on Lewis's part? Or were both the VA and the police overrating?
It's one man's word against a lot of others and ultimately this is how the story ends:
Quote: After a local backlash, on Thursday afternoon the hospital’s officials backed down and let Lewis off with a warning. But this small-change mistake has still cost the man his job. Lewis is no longer allowed on the hospital’s premises.
Should he have been fired as well?
Ultimately though the moral of the story is:
Quote: In a perfect world, Lewis would voluntarily just say no to sugar-laden refills. And yes, following rules is important too. But given the serious health challenges our veterans face and how difficult it is for them to get care once they’ve returned home, you’d think VA hospitals would adjust their priorities. Ticketing a guy who made an innocent mistake isn’t where we need to focus federal resources.
Thoughts?
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-04-19 21:15:35
My ability to respond to this keeps getting derailed by the completely uncalled-for editorializing about how fat people have become.
Trying really hard, though: I work in construction and have seen many contractors basically do anything they want with complete disregard to their surroundings, their co-workers, and certainly any bystanders caught in the wake.
Last site I was on was a big grocery store being built and it was the day before the keys were handed over to the corporate big-wigs, so the suits were on-site to check the place out. Every boss was on edge not only because the corporate paymasters apparently have ridiculous standards (they were complaining about dust in the air on an active construction site!) but also because their employees regularly do stupid ***that they should get called on more often.
Was the hospital's response in this case excessive? Yes. But I imagine there is more to this story than can be contained in 6 paragraphs of summary, a pointless pop culture reference, and a screed about how fat people are icky and need to be shot on sight (paraphrasing).
 Valefor.Endoq
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By Valefor.Endoq 2014-04-19 21:17:26
He stole sodapop. Case closed.
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By Shiva.Viciousss 2014-04-19 21:19:34
No different than walking into a walmart taking a soda out of the fridge and not paying for it, repeatedly. Its a crime, every time. Inb4 this becomes partisan.
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By Asura.Ludoggy 2014-04-19 21:19:51
Dont let customers fill their own drinks in the first place if you want to avoid fighting over 95¢ refills.
Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 21:21:26
I work in construction and have seen many contractors basically do anything they want with complete disregard to their surroundings, their co-workers, and certainly any bystanders caught in the wake. I immediately thought of that too, maybe they were just looking for a reason to fire this man.
Further investigation into the issue shows:
Quote: Lewis, who could not be reached for comment earlier Thursday by FoxNews.com, was “verbally aggressive” when confronted by VA officials and police regarding the soda, Lobbestael said. She did not elaborate.
Bahamut.Ravael
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By Bahamut.Ravael 2014-04-19 21:25:04
No free refills means no free refills. A $525 fee and the loss of his job seems a bit harsh though. The title of the thread is misleading, however, as it wasn't a "free soda refill" that caused the federal offense in the first place. He stole soda he didn't pay for, plain and simple.
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Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 21:26:03
Also don't forget that technically he hasn't been fired, he's just not allowed back on the premises.
Video report:
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Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 21:29:45
Dont let customers fill their own drinks in the first place if you want to avoid fighting over 95¢ refills. But they had signs everywhere.
Cerberus.Logical
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By Cerberus.Logical 2014-04-19 21:30:27
Charging for refills is one of the quickest ways for an eating establishment to gain my ire (and subsequent lack of patronage). Filling my cup with soda costs pennies, if not a fraction of a cent, out of pocket for any place in virtually any circumstances, and yet the intangible gain customers receive from free refills is, in my experience, pretty substantial. One of the most short-sighted, bottom-line-starved business decisions out there.
Blown way out of proportion. If it's not an independent food provider leasing the space, and this was a government owned and operated cafeteria, then it's not even a private enterprise operating for profit.
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By Shiva.Viciousss 2014-04-19 21:30:41
As I thought, its a cafeteria, you get your food and drink then pay for it. So basically when he went to get a refill, he walked by the cashier, to the soda fountain, filled it, and walked by the cashier again (and the no free refills signs) without blinking an eye. Repeatedly. Then played it off when he got caught. Cute story. No sympathy.
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-04-19 21:32:26
As I thought, its a cafeteria, you get your food and drink then pay for it. So basically when he went to get a refill, he walked by the cashier, to the soda fountain, filled it, and walked by the cashier again (and the no free refills signs) without blinking an eye. Repeatedly. Then played it off when he got caught. Cute story. No sympathy. Again: I see contractors do this all the time. It must be something related to the fact that they don't work in the same place "forever."
 Lakshmi.Zerowone
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By Lakshmi.Zerowone 2014-04-19 21:40:15
When it comes to fines for theft it really should at most be a reimbursement of 2x what was taken. 525$ for an 85cent refill or even in the case of pirating music 250k for a 10$ album is a bit absurd.
VIP
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By Odin.Jassik 2014-04-19 21:44:33
When it comes to fines for theft it really should at most be a reimbursement of 2x what was taken. 525$ for an 85cent refill or even in the case of pirating music 250k for a 10$ album is a bit absurd.
For amounts that low, there would need to be some kind of punitive cost added, don't pay for refills for years and the one time you get caught it costs you 2 bucks, hardly a deterrent, though most of these kinds of fines are inclusive of court costs or other fees that you could view as illegal taxes.
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-04-19 21:49:24
Court costs are actually not that high unless you're a *** who drags the whole affair out for over a year and demands a jury trial for a petty shoplifting charge (for instance). It's mostly just the punitive thing you mentioned.
And I'll second your "This was just the time they got caught" implication. I've been forced to listen to long litanies of how much ***genuine shoplifters have stolen before they finally got caught (and often after getting caught, too -- our justice system is terrifyingly inefficient at deterrence). Come to that, virtually every person I know with a record has multiple counts of the same dumb thing, most of them often not on record in the court but justly inferred by the prosecution and judge.
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By Shiva.Viciousss 2014-04-19 21:54:34
Shoplifters are never first time offenders.
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Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 21:56:57
So we have:
As I thought, its a cafeteria, you get your food and drink then pay for it. So basically when he went to get a refill, he walked by the cashier, to the soda fountain, filled it, and walked by the cashier again (and the no free refills signs) without blinking an eye. Repeatedly. Then played it off when he got caught. Which sounds about right from a narrative point of view.
But on the other hand:
Charging for refills is one of the quickest ways for an eating establishment to gain my ire (and subsequent lack of patronage). Filling my cup with soda costs pennies, if not a fraction of a cent, out of pocket for any place in virtually any circumstances, and yet the intangible gain customers receive from free refills is, in my experience, pretty substantial. One of the most short-sighted, bottom-line-starved business decisions out there.
But do remember that this is a VA hospital, and technically they are a medical business, not a food business that relies on continued patronage.
I see contractors do this all the time. It must be something related to the fact that they don't work in the same place "forever." This is what leads me to believe that he did not really care about this particular job, but wanted to clear his name as to not have a police record.
When it comes to fines for theft it really should at most be a reimbursement of 2x what was taken. 525$ for an 85cent refill or even in the case of pirating music 250k for a 10$ album is a bit absurd. Does the price of the refill matter or is theft by any other name still theft?
Or did they know what he was doing and did not say anything because they wanted to get this guy in trouble towards the end of the job?
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-04-19 22:05:44
Or did they know what he was doing and did not say anything because they wanted to get this guy in trouble towards the end of the job? If we're going to be cynical, I'd posit that it is more they'd been looking for a way to get rid of the guy but, being they're in an at-will state (I assume -- I don't feel like researching where the construction company is registered but most states are at-will), don't want to have to pay unemployment to the little sod.
Do we have any word on what he did beyond being a "construction worker"? I mean, it's a pain in the ***, but finding a new plumber or HVAC guy or whatever is hardly difficult in any community large enough to support a VA hospital. I would imagine he'd been burning bridges steadily and it was less "Job's done, get rid of him," than "Finally we got something on the ***."
People who steal from their job sites, for instance, are unlikely to get caught the first time and, even when circumstantial evidence points to them, it can take a while to build the case. Someone who blatantly robs a hospital of a few cents worth of soda is probably also slipping a $200 coil of wire or $500-worth of aluminum into the back of his truck.
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By Shiva.Viciousss 2014-04-19 22:06:05
Theft is theft, period. I don't really care how much he was fined, and this isn't a case of a person losing their job because of their opinion/sexual orientation/whatever, this a person that lost their job for committing a crime. Repeatedly. He probably thought the VA cafeteria was an easy mark, like I said, shoplifters aren't first timers. Even if he didn't, he got busted. Too bad.
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-04-19 22:13:48
Dont let customers fill their own drinks in the first place if you want to avoid fighting over 95¢ refills. Vaguely related rant: I really hate going to a fast food restaurant (which I only do in times of desperation, anyhow) and getting charged $2 or more for a paper cup in which to put less soda than I could get buying a bottle from the grocery store. I always feel like I need to drain and fill the thing a few times just to justify the mark-up that comes attached to the "privilege" of free refills.
Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 22:16:29
Dont let customers fill their own drinks in the first place if you want to avoid fighting over 95¢ refills. Vaguely related rant: I really hate going to a fast food restaurant (which I only do in times of desperation, anyhow) and getting charged $2 or more for a paper cup in which to put less soda than I could get buying a bottle from the grocery store. I always feel like I need to drain and fill the thing a few times just to justify the mark-up that comes attached to the "privilege" of free refills. I used to do that right before I left the place too. Just to make sure I got my money's worth.
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Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 22:18:44
Theft is theft, period. I don't really care how much he was fined, and this isn't a case of a person losing their job because of their opinion/sexual orientation/whatever, this a person that lost their job for committing a crime. Repeatedly. He probably thought the VA cafeteria was an easy mark, like I said, shoplifters aren't first timers. Even if he didn't, he got busted. Too bad. When you really get into it, the only thing he stole was some HFCS, caramel coloring, and possibly some caffeine if it was caffeinated obviously. H20 and CO2 are usually free.
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By Shiva.Viciousss 2014-04-19 22:21:08
Theft is theft, period. I don't really care how much he was fined, and this isn't a case of a person losing their job because of their opinion/sexual orientation/whatever, this a person that lost their job for committing a crime. Repeatedly. He probably thought the VA cafeteria was an easy mark, like I said, shoplifters aren't first timers. Even if he didn't, he got busted. Too bad. When you really get into it, the only thing he stole was some HFCS, caramel coloring, and possibly some caffeine if it was caffeinated obviously. H20 and CO2 are usually free.
OK? He was still knowingly committing a crime, unless you believe his BS story about not seeing the "No refills" signs on a daily basis?
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By Shiva.Onorgul 2014-04-19 22:23:58
The company still pays for the water they get from the city grid. And it has to buy and maintain the machines that pump, combine, and carbonate the beverage. And there's all the operating overhead. The whole thing is still only a couple cents at most to fill an average cup, but it's high-profit-margin stuff like soda fountains that help to offset the low-profit-margin stuff. I know grocery stores are lucky to make two or three cents for every pound of meat they sell (seriously) and I imagine a restaurant selling inexpensive food lives on similar margins.
It's counter-intuitive, but if he'd been stealing burgers or other prepared food, he'd effectively be stealing less. It's the pre-packaged stuff and sodas that tend to cover costs.
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By Odin.Minefield 2014-04-19 22:34:14
Dont let customers fill their own drinks in the first place if you want to avoid fighting over 95¢ refills. Vaguely related rant: I really hate going to a fast food restaurant (which I only do in times of desperation, anyhow) and getting charged $2 or more for a paper cup in which to put less soda than I could get buying a bottle from the grocery store. I always feel like I need to drain and fill the thing a few times just to justify the mark-up that comes attached to the "privilege" of free refills. I used to do that right before I left the place too. Just to make sure I got my money's worth. Heh, working at a fast food place where our measly 20oz cup is like $2(it has free refills though), I know that feel. There is a gas station no more than 100ft down the road as well that sells 32oz+ for a dollar or less, as much as I want to tell them that, they're spending their money at our place so do it to it.
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Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 22:35:46
The company still pays for the water they get from the city grid. And it has to buy and maintain the machines that pump, combine, and carbonate the beverage. And there's all the operating overhead. The whole thing is still only a couple cents at most to fill an average cup, but it's high-profit-margin stuff like soda fountains that help to offset the low-profit-margin stuff. I know grocery stores are lucky to make two or three cents for every pound of meat they sell (seriously) and I imagine a restaurant selling inexpensive food lives on similar margins.
It's counter-intuitive, but if he'd been stealing burgers or other prepared food, he'd effectively be stealing less. It's the pre-packaged stuff and sodas that tend to cover costs. I believe that's how many fast food places make their money is on the price of soda rather than the food. Hence why alternatives are usually pre-packaged.
Leviathan.Chaosx
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2014-04-19 22:38:37
Theft is theft, period. I don't really care how much he was fined, and this isn't a case of a person losing their job because of their opinion/sexual orientation/whatever, this a person that lost their job for committing a crime. Repeatedly. He probably thought the VA cafeteria was an easy mark, like I said, shoplifters aren't first timers. Even if he didn't, he got busted. Too bad. When you really get into it, the only thing he stole was some HFCS, caramel coloring, and possibly some caffeine if it was caffeinated obviously. H20 and CO2 are usually free.
OK? He was still knowingly committing a crime, unless you believe his BS story about not seeing the "No refills" signs on a daily basis? A crime seems like a rather harsh word though. It seems that whether or not this was criminal lies in Christopher's behavior rather than his actual actions that fateful day.
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By Shiva.Viciousss 2014-04-19 22:40:18
Psh.
No different than walking into a walmart taking a soda out of the fridge and not paying for it, repeatedly. Its a crime, every time. Inb4 this becomes partisan.
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VIP
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By Odin.Jassik 2014-04-19 22:43:38
Theft is theft, period. I don't really care how much he was fined, and this isn't a case of a person losing their job because of their opinion/sexual orientation/whatever, this a person that lost their job for committing a crime. Repeatedly. He probably thought the VA cafeteria was an easy mark, like I said, shoplifters aren't first timers. Even if he didn't, he got busted. Too bad. When you really get into it, the only thing he stole was some HFCS, caramel coloring, and possibly some caffeine if it was caffeinated obviously. H20 and CO2 are usually free.
OK? He was still knowingly committing a crime, unless you believe his BS story about not seeing the "No refills" signs on a daily basis? A crime seems like a rather harsh word though. It seems that whether or not this was criminal lies in Christopher's behavior rather than his actual actions that fateful day.
Meh, you will be charged with theft because you took something without paying, not because you had a bad attitude, even if a person's reaction to accusation has an effect on how harshly they're treated. Bottom line is, he stole something. All other factors are just smoke and mirrors.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if he had had several complaints for other things as well and not paying for refills is extremely common and ignored.
Here's an interesting story I picked up on today: Quote: On Wednesday construction worker Christopher Lewis went to refill his cup at the soda machine in the cafeteria at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center. Next thing he knew, Federal Police Force officers were slapping him with a $525 federal citation for shoplifting.
Seems harmless enough, but here's what what the hospital had to say: Quote: In a statement, the hospital said Lewis told “VA police he had not paid for refills of beverages on multiple occasions, even though signs are posted in the cafeteria informing patrons refills are not free. Shoplifting is a crime.”
According to police: Quote: After police approached him, Lewis tried to pay the cost of the refill, but his money was refused. Instead, he was given the shoplifting ticket. A hospital administrator even called what Lewis did theft of government property.
So is this a case of blatant disregard for the rule law on Lewis's part? Or were both the VA and the police overrating?
It's one man's word against a lot of others and ultimately this is how the story ends:
Quote: After a local backlash, on Thursday afternoon the hospital’s officials backed down and let Lewis off with a warning. But this small-change mistake has still cost the man his job. Lewis is no longer allowed on the hospital’s premises.
Should he have been fired as well?
Ultimately though the moral of the story is:
Quote: In a perfect world, Lewis would voluntarily just say no to sugar-laden refills. And yes, following rules is important too. But given the serious health challenges our veterans face and how difficult it is for them to get care once they’ve returned home, you’d think VA hospitals would adjust their priorities. Ticketing a guy who made an innocent mistake isn’t where we need to focus federal resources.
Thoughts?
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