ARGIN SIMONIAN
Glendale
Was the honor system exploited?
About 7:15 a.m. Sunday, I was stopped at a traffic light at Colorado Street and Chevy Chase Drive. I saw a gentleman who seemed about 60 years old removing all the Sunday copies of the Los Angeles Times from a vending machine adjacent to the doughnut shop.
What a bundle he had in his arms, probably about 10. The Sunday paper via the machine is $1.50, or six quarters. I wondered to myself, “Did he come with 60 quarters or did he just put in $1.50 and help himself to the entire content of the machine?” I can’t prove it, but I would have to assume it was the latter. Now that’s a no-no.
I had only fantasized that some law enforcement officer had seen what I had seen. Perhaps there would have been a very appropriate arrest. There is no doubt why all of the papers would have been “stolen”; it was Sunday, and the paper is rich with merchandiser coupons. That particular machine was only one of hundreds in Glendale. I wonder how many machines get looted each Sunday by thieves, like the man I saw struggling to get down the street as quickly as he could with all that loot?
This is really a tough crime to combat unless they could devise machines that would deliver only one paper per transaction. The present machines work on the honor system, but there is no honor among thieves.
Wouldn’t it be interesting, if 7:15 a.m. Sunday, when that same gentleman is repeating the same crime on the same corner by the doughnut shop, if after stealing the papers, he is apprehended by one of Glendale’s finest?
RICHARD CIASCA
Glendale
GCC trustees deserve thanks
