Dracoro

Recent goverment guidelines state that a zero tolerance policy is to be put in place against shoplifters. In particular a crackdown on thefts of penny sweets in local cornershops are to be targeted.

Recent studies by the SAS (Society Against Shoplifters) suggest that the penny sweet scam is committed by many people and concentrating on these will stop those going on to commit harder crimes such as larger shoplifting crimes, drugs, prostitution, people smuggling, murder and rape.
They state that many people are going into shops and filling a bag of penny sweets up to the value of 70pence but actually putting many more sweets in the bag, many putting up to a 100 sweets in at a time. This is costing the country billions every year state the SAS, something has to be done.

A law made back in 1956 states that the maximum number of sweets you can purchase is 70. Opponents want this raised to 80 or 90 in light of advances in toothpaste and general dental hygeine, in addition to the reduced amount of sugar in modern penny sweets but there are no plans to raise the limit at this time.

Many shops have now installed special monitoring equiment in their shops that accurately count the number of penny sweets that people are putting into the bags. Should they put more sweets in than they intend on paying for (e.g. 75 sweets whilst paying 70p) then an automated fine of £40 is made out to the offender with no room for error or comeback. So far this year £10million has been raised through these fines which has paid for more monitoring equipment, plush shops many with top of the range wallpaper lining the walls at £400 a square metre although shopkeepers deny they are doing it for the money.

Opponents of the scheme have noted that many shop floor staff reporting that their shops are now suffering mass congestion as there are often many people in the shop slowly counting and recounting out their sweets in the shop, some have even bought their own weighing and counting equipment but the SAS want these banned as "they deliberately enable criminals to avoid paying fines". In addition many other crimes are taking place such as violence in shops, staff being threatened etc. but police have not intervened in these matters quoting 'insufficient resources'.
In the past shop floor staff could use their discretion and weigh/count the sweets if they suspected more than 70 sweets were being taken. Often they would merely waive the odd few sweets as many people genuinely miscount. Previously a few sharps words for those taking over 80 or 90 sweets was enough for them to be a bit more careful while counting and persistent offenders taking over 100 sweets would normally result in the police being summoned.

SAS spokesman pete lewis answered critics of the new scheme stating that the law is an absolute, if you pay 70p then you must not take any more than 70p. There have, so far, been many incidents of people accidentally mis-counting the sweets and receiving automatic fines through the letterbox. Mr lewis is adamant though, "This is not a victimless crime" and states an example of someone who took 74pence worth of sweets and as a result 2 children were brutally killed and a number of kittens decapitated".

If successful, the scheme may be applied to other areas of food selection.

Jap2Scrap

lol

Someone has too much time on their hands

unclebuck

Dracoro

Who me?

A&E

Are they going to do anything about the snotty little children who choose their sweets, taste them, decide they don't like them and put them back in the pick and mix bins?