I am the matriarch of a police family, but that doesn’t mean I agree with all of the laws my kin enforce.
The day before New Year’s Eve, I stopped at a Walmart to buy the sparkling wine, Asti, to drink with our holiday supper. As I joined the checkout line, the woman ahead of me, who had a cart of groceries, invited me to go ahead of her because I had only one item. We both ended up waiting what seemed like a long time. The young female behind the counter was apparently a teen-ager who had to leave the area in search of a grown-up to wave my purchase past the scanner. She returned and the three of us ‘cooled our heels’. Finally, a white-haired lady appeared and jerked the bottle in front of the reader. The girl could bag it and take my money.
Sometimes, I run into that same problem in our smalltown grocery. Usually, the adult in the next lane stops checking long enough to walk across the aisle and slide my bottle of wine past the scanner. Whether you buy alcohol or not, this tableau makes you wait while the employees satisfy the state law.
It seems to me the young person behind the counter could wave a sealed container of booze or a package of beer past the OCR instead of taking an adult from their task. Whether you buy alcohol or not, the tableau wastes your time as you wait in line behind the purchaser or in the next lane where the grown-up must leave to handle the job.
I like to see stores hire teens. Our kids enjoyed their part-time jobs while they attended school; Lisa worked in the garage of the local Ford dealer and Kurt was employed at a marina across the road from Lake Summerset. Besides earning money, they each learned to satisfy a boss plus a lot about what it takes to operate a small business.
Are there any laws that you disagree with?
It’s interesting that you should write about LAWS this time for I just got a Letter to the Editor published this week in the Wisconsin State Journal about the use of the Flex Lane on our Beltline. It is suppose to be used only during certain hours, but when I was on the Beltline one Sunday in December, people were using it freely though there were big red X’s up showing the lane was not suppose to be used. My point was if you are to have a law against something, then it should be enforced by the police.