Waste not, want not
Two Columbia, Mo., sanitation workers apparently could not bear to see cases of expired beer wind up in the city’s landfill. So, they took it for themselves, according to the Associated Press. Police and city supervisors are trying to determine if the salvage was a crime — theft of city property — or just a policy violation. “If we determine it’s a police matter, we will take some action,” Columbia police spokesperson Officer Jessie Haden told AP.
A Columbia distributor, Scheppers Distributing Co., sent 1,500 cases of expired beer to the landfill on April 1 in two shipments. The first shipment was destroyed immediately, but the second, containing about 700 cases of Budweiser and Michelob Ultra, was not.
Margrace Buckler, the city’s human resource director, said two Solid Waste Division workers, who haven’t been identified, brought a city pickup truck to the landfill and hauled off about 50 cases of the beer. Working off a tip a week later, city officials reviewed video from the landfill and saw the workers drive away with their haul, though what happened to the beer remains unknown. When the sanitation workers were confronted, one quit, the Columbia Tribune reported. The other could face disciplinary action.
Buckler said it’s likely that at least one landfill employee was involved because “the assumption is that someone made a phone call.” Once the beer was left at the landfill, it became city property. That means the city could be liable if the sanitation workers shared it with other people, Buckler said.
Scheppers President Joe Priesmeyer told AP that it is not unusual for people to want to take some beer. “Every once in a while, we’ll have some beer get stolen by overzealous people off of our trucks,” he said. “Beer is a popular product.”
Read the AP article.