[$tinkle]

or "hippies gone wild (oats)": http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bowl22-2008sep22,0,5955581.story

At Berkeley Bowl, the nuts are off the shelf

BERKELEY -- As most veteran customers know, it takes a pretty thick skin to successfully navigate the Berkeley Bowl, this strident city's most popular grocery store.

Outside, petitioners seeking signatures for ballot measures have come to blows with opinionated residents. In the tiny parking lot, nicknamed the Berkeley Brawl, frustrated motorists have been known to ram one another's cars. At the checkout, people have thrown punches and unripened avocados at suspected line-cutters.

When one shopper was told she couldn't return a bag of granola, she showily dumped its contents on the floor. Culyon Garrison, who works at the customer-service desk, recently had a loaf of bread thrown at him.

The produce emporium -- one of the nation's most renowned retailers of exotic fruits and vegetables -- creates its own bad behavior. Kamikaze shoppers crash down crowded aisles without eye contact or apology for fender-benders. So many customers weren't waiting to pay before digging in that management imposed the ultimate deterrent: Those caught sampling without buying will be banned for life -- no reprieves, no excuses. (Not even "I forgot to take my medication.")

won't they give peas a chance?

 

[splat]

I like this

"They treated me like a thief," said the 37-year-old park planner, who was photographed and required to sign a no-trespass agreement. "Technically I was stealing, but I wasn't trying to hide anything. I was just deciding which type of apricot to buy."

 

[JohnE]

I like the photographic vidence of the two little theivin kids...think they were ejected?

 

[X3pilot]

Those caught sampling without buying will be banned for life -- no reprieves, no excuses. (Not even "I forgot to take my medication.")

 

[valve bouncer]

Sounds like a cool shop. Unfortunately actual cool tends to attract the wanna be cool and leads to the rough end of a pineapple being jammed up the Khyber.

 

[sanjuro]

Man, I need a job there. I would go thru those hippies like I was a weed wacker on dandelions.

 

[Defenestrated]

Clearly Yet More Evidence Of The Violent Left That O'rielly Was Talking About

 

[rockwool]

Sounds like a cool shop. Unfortunately actual cool tends to attract the wanna be cool and leads to the rough end of a pineapple being jammed up the Khyber.

Man, you're eloquent today, making us visiualize n' all dat! How's your english teaching going? Good analysis BTW.