On Monday afternoon, June 27, local authorities arrested a woman because she was caught stealing coupons from a number of Sunday newspapers.
The woman, identified as Sybil Hobson, 37-years old and a resident of Denton, Texas, was arrested and charged with fraudulent destruction by the local authorities. Prior to the woman’s arrest, the police were already doing an investigation based on information forwarded by a man who had been hired by a vendor. The hired man was to watch for possible coupon stealing on the newsstands. This kind of coupon theft has been giving newspaper vendors a problem, as Sunday newspapers that do not have coupon inserts do not get sold.
According to a police report, the man who forwarded the information to them said that he saw a woman driving a Cadillac SUV stop at two vending racks. The woman put in money for a Sunday newspaper, but then removed all the coupon inserts from all the newspapers in the rack. When the woman was approached and told by the man that what she had done had been reported to the police, she went into her car and then drove away. She was still unable to avoid being caught though, as a clear description of her was given to the police, allowing for her identification.
Hobson is currently facing a Class A offense, which has a fine of up to $4,000 and is punishable by jail of up to a year. Hobson was originally charged with a Class C offense, however, detectives changed the charge to a more serious one after consulting with the county’s Office of the District Attorney.
This is nothing but greed, entitlement, and hoarding. Stealing is wrong. It doesn't matter how small or how large the item is that is stolen. It is not right to take something that does not belong to you. She is driving a Cadillac SUV for crying out loud. Her car is worth more than many people bring home for a year's salary. Did she really need to take that many inserts from 2 separate news stands? I hope she saved enough to get a good lawyer. And to the folks that have the unmitigated gall to say that the news stands should take on the expense to secure the papers better to stop coupon thieves, I say to you that you're a bunch of dumb asses. You would not be saying that if someone walked up to your property and stole all of your shit. Be for real. More money spent on security measures will just be passed on to the PAYING customer and it still won't solve the problem. Prosecute the damn thieves and maybe they will stop…DUH!
I say seal up the entire paper with the inserts in front of the paper so that customers can see the inserts before they buy them. If anybody is caught tearing open the bag without making a purchase arrest them. Stealing coupons is like stealing money. Who are you to steal what someone else is paying for? Now if they let you dumpster drive that's your business. If the library give coupons to you for free that's your business. If the store let you have extra free newspapers that they're getting ready to recycle then that's your business. When you are stealing from paying customers who want to safe as well then that's our business and your a$$ should get locked up. I tired of paying for papers with stolen inserts. Must I really stand there and look through all 10 papers just to make sure that I get all my inserts? These damn cashiers are stealing them as well. We can't exclude some of these delivery people. When you steal on the job you should be fired. They really need to make a way to track these inserts until a purchase is made.