Replies to '04/07 Social Taboos: Is This Normal?'

If they pay for the items, it is not shoplifting.  Shoplifting is when you leave the store with items in which you did not pay for.

if you pay for it, why would it be shoplifting???

I have done this with a box of cookies while waiting in a long line, what's the big deal, I am paying for the stuff. I would never do it with things that have to be weighed or messy like a candy bar, but a box of cookies or crackers, no big deal for me.

Most stores in most states (from my understanding) is that you aren't shoplifting until you leave the store with the item.

It's not something that *I* would personally do...I kind of find it in bad taste myself...but they aren't stealing.

Hi, since you ask for others thoughts on this, I don't agree that's its stealing. If someone is eating something through the store and pays for it how can it be stealing? I do this myself, of course, I have shopped at the same store for years, I know everybody and everybody knows me. I have on more than one occasion brought something back to the store that wasn't mine, you know, put into the wrong bag, or something I didn't see in my cart at check out. I don't believe in stealing. Of course now, alot of stores have the "try it before you buy it" policy.  I don't think its stealing until you take it out of the store anyway. I could be wrong. Hope not.

Personally, I've never opened up food items and walked around the store eating them.. BUT, I've had to open up a box of kleenex at a store, then pay for it afterwards, because my son had a runny nose and I was out of kleenex.  I figured it was better to do open the box before paying for it, than to let my son go around the store with his nose running freely.

 

The bottom line is, if someone is eating something before they pay for it, there could be more to the story... Perhaps they have a health condition and it's dangerous for their blood sugar to drop?  It could be lots of things.. I figure that as long as they're not popping open say,,, a can of sardines or something really obnoxious like that, then it's no big deal - as long as it's paid for in the end.