Safeway groceries are horrible people.

livnlite

I shop at safeway too .. never had a problem .. I shop at a lot of stores ... never had a problem. I know I have on rare occasion, opened a bottle of water to have a drink, but of course pay for it when I check out. I think many many people do. Considering a bottle of water has a bar code, it's easy enough to do. Consuming something that is sol d weight, it a completely different story.

Walking out without paying, getting caught, and tryng to defend your actions would be somewhat complicated, me thinks. It would be hard to convince anyone that was just an 'honest' mistake .. even knowing it happens, probably more often than you'd think.

WifeNMama

she was going to leave the store without paying for the sandwich that she had consumed, because she "forgot" that she ate it. It is attempted theft. The child being taken into custody was a little extreme, but look at it from a bussiness standpoint, if everybody you caught stealing was like , " oh I meant to pay for it but I just forgot" and we just said "well ok, then, no harm no foul...." how far would we get? seriously.

I've worked briefly for safeway in the past, and their policy is to let the person have the benefit of the doubt. If someone puts a birthday card inside a newspaper but it falls out at checkout, the cashier is supposed to ask politely if that was a card they wished to purchase or if they didn't know it was in there. They allow would be shoplifters the chance to save face. it is a sort of "no harm, no foul." I'm surprised at the measures they took in this case.