Buying Quiche - with a smile.

Christine Cuddihy wanted to buy a slice of quiche, but checkout staff at Tesco, Cannons Park, Coventry thought otherwise and demanded identification before allowing her to take such a dangerous thing home.

In amongst the comments area beneath DM's article are a whole bunch from East Anglia - an excellent skit when put together in sequence. Whoever wrote them should be a script writer!

First :-

While this may seem laughable and ridiculous to alot of people I feel I must point out why I think this happened. Quiche is a very high fat food and young people aren't always the best judge of what is and isnt good for them. The lady here must have looked young to the cashier and some shops do have an obligation to stop people under 21 from buying things that are bad for them.

I used to run a convenience store and would ID anyone who wanted more than 2 bars of chocolate. Weight gain can run away with a young person and its up to the older members of society to try to protect them.
- 2/2/2010 15:35

Naturally there were many negative responses, but in the best tradition of Music-Hall, just one or two were singled out as being worthy of further comment  :-

To Cas: I feel I have a responsibility to steer youngsters in the right direction and that direction is not straight towards a giant quiche and a packet of toffee bonbons. I always looked at what my customers were buying and would comment if anything was too unhealthy for them. Obviously if they were over 21 I'd have to sell it to them but I was very careful about monitoring the younger ones.

I think its a good thing to do!
- 2/2/2010 15:51

and

Hello to Jo Jo, you have made me smile as i'm sitting here eating my homemade flapjack. Yes it was quite a bit like Fawlty Towers in that I tried to exercise a bit of control over my lovely customers. Well, more concern than control. I gave out loyalty cards to people buying healthy items and once they had bought 10 they were given a free tin of peas.
Similarly, if a customer repeatedly bought unhealthy goods I would take note and then hand them a leaflet about Weight Watchers-the look of embarassment would be so telling! I knew that from that moment on they would be health food addicts.
Ah it was a lovely time, I do miss it.
- 2/2/2010 16:55

Of course vociferous DM readers don't like evidence of people being treated like children, especially not for something trivial, but this commenter (is there such a word?) points out :-

I find it pretty ironic that i'm getting ridiculed and red arrowed for my comments and yet the article which ran last week about Tesco banning people wearing pyjamas received nothing but praise and admiration. If Tesco wants a dress code that is fine, and if I wanted to limit who I sold certain goods to then that should be fine too...so why isn't it?
- 2/2/2010 20:59

No answers?

So along comes the punchline, which would make Andy Burnham proud!

I dont understand all the negativity and red arrows! Some customers even told me they'd managed to lose weight and get healthy thanks to my 'moderation' policy.

More shop workers should give it a go, yes it affects your profits but what's more important- money or a healthy nation?
- 2/2/2010 20:21

Good job it's a joke.