By: Daniel Nardini

In this particular case, I will name the place my wife and I go shopping. We go to Kroger, which has been our favorite place for close to ten years. They give us good service and have always helped us when we needed to look for items we could never find at first glance. One time I remember one employee telling me is that unless they could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone had actually shoplifted that it was not their policy to make wild accusations because the store knows it could get sued. I am well aware that petty theft takes away millions in merchandise from so many businesses every year, and I am certainly against shoplifting. But the intent has to be there, and there is a difference between someone eating something and forgetting it and someone carefully trying to take something, conceal it, and then trying to walk out of the store as if nothing happened. I have actually seen long time ago some people actually try to shoplift—it was an operation whereby you had some people distract store personnel while the real thief takes a few items.

This brings me to the case of the Safeway store in Honolulu, Hawaii. In my view, what happened was something that just went out of control. Nicole Leszczynski, and her husband Marcin Leszczynski, had taken a wrong turn and ended up at a Safeway grocery store. Nicole, being pregnant, obviously was suffering from hunger pangs and so ate two sandwiches that cost a total of $5.00. They had put the wrappers into the shopping cart but had forgot to pay for them. They were stopped by security and taken to the manager. The manager did not allow them to pay for the two sandwiches, and instead called the police and had them both arrested. Because both parents were arrested their two year old daughter was taken away by Child Welfare Services. Eventually the two were released on $50 dollars bail and managed through a lawyer to get their daughter back. After a week Safeway dropped all charges because of the bad publicity. Still, the damage has been done and the couple are considering legal action.

I hope they do. All of this was just way out of proportion to not paying for two sandwiches worth $5.00. I have been known to munch out on something I had gotten from the deli section, and the employees at the Kroger knew I was not trying to steal anything. They’re better trained to watch what people, especially teenage kids, might steal. The only reason why Safeway dropped the charges was because of the incredibly bad publicity. I doubt they would have done this if they feared they could lose thousands of customers. I hope they lose customers. To me it seems nowadays we should choose our place of shopping carefully for our protection as well as the store’s.