I don't think you can box me into a "type". If you go and review my posts you'll see a consistent theme.
Our Constitution, and our laws are our social contract with the government. Both we and the government need to abide by them both in law and in spirit. When we don't, the law becomes a tool to be used against the unpopular and political enemies. This has happened again and again throughout history.
I personally don't think he should be paying a 3 digit fine over $0.30 worth of soda. However, that is the law. If it is unjust it should be changed.
I believe the way justice currently works in this country is a joke.
I read a study a decade or so back about the cost of soda in theaters. At that time, it cost a theater six cents to put a large Coke in your hands. The largest portion was by far the cup at five cents. Given that they have removed most of the labor and he had already paid for the cup, we're probably talking about a penny or so worth of product. Literally a 50,000% fine over what presumably everyone agrees was an honest mistake.
Now to protect the public from inadvertently becoming thieves we'll have to have a law that requires drinks without free refills to be behind the counter for controlled access. We're becoming a nation that is too stupid to operate in a free society, and zero tolerance is a big part of that.
There is a clear difference between an intentional act and an accidental one. Most laws acknowledge this by requiring mens rea--a guilty mind--for an act to be criminal. Lack of intent means lack of a crime.
This guy was charged under state code 16-13-110, which requires "intention of depriving the merchant of the possession, use, or benefit of the merchandise without paying the full retail value." If the victim's story is true, he believed that he had paid for the merchandise, and likely could have successfully argued his lack of intent in court. In any case, the situation should have been handled by asking him to pay the cashier for the illicit refill.
(Also, you probably meant prominent, not promiscuous, although the thought of a slutty sign is pretty funny. Bitten by spell check?)
Agreed, and it was a reasonable (though in this case wrong) assumption.
I feel for the guy, especially given that I've had a similar experience. Leaving a hotel one morning I stopped by the Continental breakfast bar (literally a single bar with a selection of either vending machine bagels or vending machine danish, coffee or reconstituted orange juice) and grabbed a danish and a tiny Dixie cup of orange juice. As I walked out, an employee chased me down and told me that I had to pay for those. I apologized of course and tried to pay, but she couldn't take the money - one had to make one's selections, walk from the bar in mid-hotel to the front desk, stand in line with people waiting to check out to pay for one's breakfast - cost me about $10 bucks for what was then a 50 cent plastic wrapped vending machine danish and maybe two ounces of reconstituted orange juice - then walk back to the breakfast area to eat it. (Or in my case, out the back door to the parking area to my getaway car to escape with my heist's ill-gotten gains.) I was on better legal grounds as there were no such signs anywhere - when questioned, the woman just said "everybody knows our Continental breakfast ain't free", a singularly stupid thing to say in a hotel where everybody knows only what you tell them - but it could have easily been the same situation had it been on federal property with an overpaid and underbrained Nicky Nightstick running his sting operation.
It hurts my head to think that someone thought that this was worth litigating.
"The posted signage states that we don't offer free refills."
>if "Okay" and payment
Thank you, please come again.
>if "What? No way!"
Please don't come back.
I think the issue here is that he didn't notice the sign and reasonably assumed that, like 99%+ of restaurants with self-service drink machines, refills were free. A similar "crime" would be putting out a stack of napkins with a sign stating "$1 each". But yes, simply asking him to pay (after pointing out the sign) or barring him from the restaurant would have made a lot more sense.
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