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Man arrested for eating jelly beans in store
A man was charged with petty theft after being caught on a surveillance camera taking jelly beans out of a bin and eating them before he got to the cash register.
The 34-year-old Fort Walton Beach man was buying groceries at Albertson’s when he stopped at a bin of candy and put an unspecified number of jelly beans in his mouth, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office report.
The deputy, who was working an off-duty detail, confronted the suspect after he had paid for the rest of his groceries and asked him if the candy was good. “Yes,” the suspect replied, according to the report.
The deputy told a manager that the suspect had taken about 10 of the “raspberry-flavored” candies. The man denied taking more than two. He added that he’d been shopping at Albertson’s for 30 years and that he was just trying the candy to see if he wanted to buy it. The deputy “advised him that Albertson’s did not have free samples of candy and he should have known that if he had been shopping at Albertson’s for 30 years.”The man didn't buy any of the candy.
The store manager on duty told the deputy that he wanted charges brought against the suspect, who was also issued a trespass warning.
The jelly beans were priced at $6.99 a pound. The deputy estimated that the 10 jellybeans would have had a value of about $2.
A store manager contacted Thursday confirmed that the store has a “zero tolerance” policy against shoplifting.
So "zero tolerance" means zero sense of proportion. Now the state of Florida will become a party in this absurd case, with taxpayers bearing the expense of the arrest, incarceration and trial of a man over a matter worth two dollars in devalued US currency.
Perhaps this hapless guy ought to be declared The Fort Walton Beach One.