You have got to be kidding me!!

[gritsar]

Quote:
Which is why I question the store for holding them for 4 hours while they waited for law enforcement to arrive without using their heads.

Yep, that safeway's managerment made a bad call. Course they wouldn't have had to make that particular "call" at all had the people had just paid for their food before eating it. For someone then to turn around and blame the cops when all they did was respond to a call of theft and take the action required of them by departmental policy, is ignorant IMO. Obviously the police dept's policy there is to call CFS when both parents are arrested. Again, not the cops fault. They don't make the rules, they just try to get everybody to play by them.

 

[Royd]

Quote:
Which is why I question the store for holding them for 4 hours while they waited for law enforcement to arrive without using their heads.

Yep, that safeway's managerment made a bad call. Course they wouldn't have had to make that particular "call" at all had the people had just paid for their food before eating it. For someone then to turn around and blame the cops when all they did was respond to a call of theft and take the action required of them by departmental policy, is ignorant IMO. Obviously the police dept's policy there is to call CFS when both parents are arrested. Again, not the cops fault. They don't make the rules, they just try to get everybody to play by them.

So, getting tazed is like a 15 yard penalty?

 

[ladyride]

Quote:
Thank-you so much some real common sense. Everyone is so sue happy this why coffee has a warning label of hot contents, come on do we need a warning label.

We as a society no longer take responsiabilty for our actions because it is so much easier to blame anything or everyone else for what we do . The only people gaining are the lawyers.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Everyone is so sue happy this why coffee has a warning label of hot contents, come on do we need a warning label.

You might be interested in watching the following documentary, "Hot Coffee". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1445203/plotsummary​

 

[cassie]

Quote:
Last I heard, Safeway corporate headquarters are doing what they can to make things right. While I am sympathetic to the concept of a lawsuit, in reality lawsuits are a pain and a hassle to everyone involved.

 

[chickened]

Safeway has insurance and that is the target for lawyers. The fact remains she should not have eaten or opened it in the store. Shoplifting makes all consumers pay more.

 

[SarahBeth9394]

Quote:
I worked for Safeway for over 20 years.
Trust me. They are trying to avoid a lawsuit or lost sales. They just want it to go away and if they have to back-peddle on their own policies they will. They will probably also throw their manager under the bus to do it, too. What we were told to do policy wise went right out the window in certain situations. It is a no win for the employees who are doing what they are taught to do. If they didn't do it they would be in just as much hot water.

I have seen it over and over. Even people with a history of theft just need to whimper about a lawsuit or bad publicity and they will usually back off.

Well I worked for Lucky's and I couldn't believe that people would eat stuff they didn't pay for first but the store allowed it just the way that Safeway did because it was bad for business. Our store stopped allowing teens to come in during the midday lunch because they would eat and stash the wrappers. It was the boxperson's responsibility to check the cart to make sure nothing was left in it unpaid and to ask the checker if they got any item that remained in the cart. Of course Safeway doesn't want a lawsuit and they want to get this story put to bed as fast as possible. But it is there own policy that opens the door for this to happen. So like you said if they have to back peddle on their policy they will. Since they allow for eating in the store which is evidenced by not approaching the customer and asking that they refrain from it and they don't want to change that then they need to change the policy to one that will give the management the discretion of accepting payment from the customer if they say it's an honest mistake even when there are times that they doubt the customer. Even you said what you were told to do went out the window in certain situations. So customer comes in and eats a sandwhich while filling a cart and somehow misses getting the wrapper scanned and apologizes immediately when the mistake was realized and tries to pay for what they missed then they should be allowed the opportunity to do so.

I still think you shouldn't eat until you pay but since that is not the store policy holding them at the store for 4 hours to get arrested was stupid. Oh and I seriously doubt the manager will get much more than a write up if that since they are union members and the store has to follow the agreed upon disciplinary procedures. If Safeway were to fire the manager they'd have a much larger lawsuit on their hands than what this family would have given them because Safeway would have the Union to deal with.

 

[Orchid]

Quote:
Chickened and I actually agree on something.

 

[DuckLady]

Management are not Union. Management has no real rights.
I was in Safeway management.
BTDT as far as the backpeddling, bus throwing. It disgusted me that they felt letting people get away with theft was less important than enforcing their own policies and I was happy to retire the minute I was able to.

 

[SarahBeth9394]

Hmm. I didn't know that management wasn't Union. Yep that manager is screwed. But I still feel that letting people eat in the store just opens the door for this very issue to happen.

Got a life experience on the eating in stores as well. I was taught not to eat in the store. When I was in the first grade we move to another state close by step dads parents. One day my granny who babysat me after school took me to the grocery store. While we were there we went by the ice cream. Granny reached into the freezer and opened a box of ice cream bars and gave it to me and told me to go ahead it was a treat from her. I carried the ice cream through the store letting it melt. I wasn't allowed to say no to granny when she gave it to me and wasn't allowed to say no when she told me to eat it before it made a huge mess. Then she took a big bite out of it which grossed me out. We got to the checkstand and they informed her that they didn't sell individual ice cream bars only packages of them. I don't remember how they worked it out. After reading this story I am so thankful that she wasn't arrested and me taken away to strangers in an already strange place where the only person I knew was granny and I had just really met her a week before that at the most. I would have been terrified.