HMMM!
Free lunches exist, but expect complaints
ROME (Reuters):
WHO SAYS there are no free lunches?
A Roman restaurant owner called the police Monday after a smartly dressed customer got up and calmly declared that he didn't have any money to pay the bill.
Identity checks showed that 96 complaints had been filed against the man for pulling that same stunt across Italy over the past 12 years, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
This is called being proactive
Timnath, Colorado (AP):
A SMALL town south of Fort Collins, Colo., has banned smoking in bars, restaurants, and indoor work places as soon as they get them.
The only bar and restaurant in town, the landmark Colorado Feed & Grain Roadhouse, closed earlier this year after losing its liquor licence.
"We talked about doing an education program, but then we realised there really isn't anyone to tell," Mayor Donna Benson said. "But this is more about a vision for the town and setting a course for what we want to become."
The ordinance was approved last week for this town of 223.
"Now is the time to pass this ordinance before Timnath sees a rush of new businesses," Ms. Benson said.
Fort Collins passed an ordinance banning smoking in most public places in 2002. After that law passed, the Feed & Grain got noticeably smokier, Ms. Benson said. That was one of the reasons Timnath residents started looking at a smoking ban.
Least competent people
A 24-YEAR-OLD woman was hospitalised in April in Nassau County, New York, after her boyfriend, tossing sticks to his dog, decided to toss his knife, instead.
The knife's handle loop caught on a finger when he flung it, and it snapped back, lodging in the woman's neck. She corroborated the story, and the man was not criminally charged. (An officer asked him, "When you threw the knife, what did you expect the dog to do?")
STEVEN JAKAITIS, 42, was arrested in Quincy, Mass., in March outside a CVS pharmacy, where police said he fell asleep while preparing to rob the place.
His car was idling; a stocking was on his head and a pistol in his pocket; and the piece of paper beside him read, "I have a Gun DO NOT Press any Alarms or let Custermors (sic) know Empty the All (sic) the register."
People with issues
GASOLENE-SNIFFER Brian Taylor, 36, was sentenced to three months in jail in March for violating a United Kingdom 'anti-social behaviour order' by loitering around the pumps at a gas station in Middlesbrough, England.
According to evidence of multiple such incidents, Taylor often dangerously reeks of gasolene fumes and is sometimes aggressive in his pursuit of a fix, including jostling gas-pumping customers. Once, he was filmed on a security camera doing an uninhibited dance after taking a huff. He apparently prefers unleaded but will settle for diesel, and denies that he drinks any of it: "I'm daft but not that daft."
Inexplicable
JOHN W. Hill of High View, West Virginia, was arrested near St. Louis in March after sheriff's deputies had stopped to investigate why he was parked alongside I-70.
He was shirtless, wearing an Indian vest, cargo pants and combat boots, had several loaded pistols, an assault rifle, a two-shot Derringer, two long rifles, a serious knife, 400 rounds of ammo and various drugs. He said only that he was headed to South Dakota Indian country to deliver supplies and a sack full of Bibles to children, and that he was armed because the West is "dangerous." He was charged with possessing a loaded weapon while being intoxicated.
A BRITISH farm couple recently handed officials of the East Lindsey District Council a surveillance video of an elderly couple who they said have been driving by from time to time and leaving pairs of new shoes (with price tags still affixed) on their property, with no explanation.
The farmers, Jason and Claire Foster, said more than 30 pairs have been dropped off since December, and the council's investigation was continuing, according to a March BBC News report.
ON APRIL 7, a 48-year-old man drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles in Anchorage, Alaska, failed to come to a complete stop, bumped into a wall of the building, backed up, parked, walked inside nonchalantly, and got his driver's licence renewed.
Although workers in the accounting offices of the building were shaken up (one thought an earthquake had hit), no one inside knew exactly what had happened until police arrived. The driver failed a coordination test and was charged with DUI based on a prescription medication he was taking.
A 32-YEAR-OLD woman reported that a robber accosted her and her dog in an upscale San Diego neighbourhood that night, demanded her money, grabbed a bag she was holding but quickly threw it down, and in frustration, tried to shoot the dog (but the gun failed to fire). He finally fled. His frustration was because she was carrying no money, and the bag contained nothing but the results of cleaning up after the dog.
Thinning the herd
ACCORDING TO police in Lake City, Michigan, the plan of the 19-year-old man in March was to stab himself lightly in the chest, call 911, and blame the "attack" on a neighbour with whom he had been feuding.
However, he handled it badly and bled to death.
POLICE IN Corpus Christi, Texas, said that the 42-year-old man who died of a brain haemorrhage in March was at the time trying to steal a concrete statue of the Virgin Mary from Turner's Gardenland nursery.
Copyright 2005 Chuck Shepherd, distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.
