Source: http://www.financenews.co.uk/fnews/woman-arrested-after-taking-thrown-out-food/ Wtf is "theft by finding"???? What's wrong with what she did? You're ok with starving wild animals like the opossums and raccoons haivng it, but our own human-kind can't? Anyone heard of this happening before?
Maybe she was an employee there? I heard employees can't consume leftover food from the fast food joint they work at.
It's sickening how much food is wasted and thrown out daily because it was not bought or consumed... I'm talking 1000's of Tons a day from Houston restaurants alone.
my sister used to work for local fried chicken restaurant. at the end of the day, they would throw away several pounds of food. the local homeless people were privy to this so they'd wait until the owners left before raiding the trash bin. well, somehow the owners found out. ever since then, every night the food that was throw away was accompanied by a gallon of bleach. "problem" solved.
I suspect the owners probably did this because they'd find the trash bags ripped and scattered out in the open the next morning, so they'd have to clean it up all over again. But then again, maybe that wasn't the case. Who knows?
No. Because if they feel that they can't get their money's worth of being able to sell that food; nobody should be able to consume it in any way. Corporate greed strikes again!
The law on theft by finding is complex and troublesome. Technically, theft is the dishonest appropriation by a person of an item belonging to another, unless they reasonably believe that the person has relinquished claim to it. Therefore, where you find a £10 note in the street, you cannot reasonably steal it (unless you saw the person the dropped it) because it would be impossible for anyone to claim it (unless they really did note down the serial number). However, office furniture, and other identifiable items (like the £10 note, but in a wallet) can be stolen by finding them. The difficulty comes with rubbish, which usually people have relinquished ownership of, but in certain cases, it has been held that bin rummaging (for instance for personal data) has been theft. http://www.therevcounter.com/general-mayhem/17127-theft-finding.html
Food and consumer electronics, etc. Wasteful society. Having to brake things before they are trashed is crazy. All because someone threw it away or it's no longer active. Cutting headphones....breaking mp3 players..., speakers, lamps, desks, mice, etc....
If I was the owner I wouldn't worry about people find-stealing my food. Instead, I'd just take pics of what I'm throwing out and drop em from a plane marked "food" in Africa.
You know food spoil right, it'll take a week to get to Africa. You have to pay for the shipping in a refrigerated cargo. If it were that easy, I'd imagine a lot of business would do it.
People are more than willing to go completely r****ded if they think it will put more money in their pockets.
I know about why they do this. They throw out food when it is past the time when they can guarantee it is fresh. So they don't want to have the risk of getting sued if they get sick going through their garbage. It sounds absolutely idiotic, but from all the stupid lawsuits I've seen/heard of, it would not surprise me at all if someone got sick from the garbage, expired food and sued the owners.
Shameful. I can understand not wanting a horde of homeless people loitering at the back of your restaurant, but there needs to be a compromise between poisoning the dumpster with bleach and shipping it to Third World countries. Too many in America don't appreciate their food. The US consumes an average of 3800 Calories per capita, and it wastes approx 350 million barrels of oil/yr according to UT researchers, or about 1450 Calories per person per day. People need to study about food waste in America. In college, we had to observe food waste in real life for an assignment, so we went to a Chinese buffet where we saw around 75% of people throwing away half the food on their plates, and getting several more dishes. This profligate way of life is unsustainable.
Also, consider that, as a business owner, having your bakery, eatery, etc. become the local hangout for the area's indigent population might be just a wee bit bad for business. People tend to stay away from restaurants that are surrounded by homeless people, and you can bet that's what would happen if word got around that the dumpster was a good spot for a free meal.
