Grocery store throws away $35K of food after woman purposefully coughs on it

When it comes to township names, it wins Hanover fist.

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I don’t know what I’m more upset with, this idiot of a customer or the grocery store throwing away $35K worth of food…

Food comes from farms that are sprayed with pesticides, have animal fecal matter on them, and have workers who sweat, spit, bleed, and cough on preprocessed food.

Before it gets processed, it’s cleaned/rinsed, pasteurized, and for all intents and purposes sanitized, or at least had the bacterial/viral count reduced to safe levels.

What would happen if the store did this?

  1. Called the police, have the person arrested for assault or applicable charges.

  2. Called a local food bank, told them the story, asked them if they would take the food after it was sanitized with a bleach disinfectant/UV/alcohol spraydown or other approved method.

Just because this is a difficult time doesn’t mean we have to resort to ignorance and/or stupidity, regardless if how easy that is to do.

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Hopefully she never does.

That link is unavailable to Europe despite “Our European visitors are important to us” and then a load of guff about how they are working to protect our personal data as per GDPR. How long have they had? How easy was it for the majority of US sites?

Anyone able to give us Euro-types the gist?

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From the article:

Detectives say the drama began to unfold around 2:30 Wednesday afternoon when Cirko walked into the store and started yelling at customers and employees. Investigators say Cirko started coughing and spitting inside the store. She allegedly said “I have the virus and now you are all going to get sick.”
Witnesses say she coughed and spit near the bakery section, as well as the produce area.

So no, it doesn’t sound playful.

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HANOVER TOWNSHIP, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) – A Luzerne County woman is locked up in connection with an incident inside a supermarket. She allegedly threatened to make customers and employees sick, claiming she had COVID-19.

Investigators say Margaret Cirko, 35, was out of control inside the Gerrity’s Supermarket on the San Souci Parkway. Employees of the store say it’s something they will never forget.

Margaret Cirko was arraigned outside district court in Hanover Township on Thursday afternoon. District Judge Joe Halesey conducted a “drive thru arraignment” because of COVID-19 concerns.

Detectives say the drama began to unfold around 2:30 Wednesday afternoon when Cirko walked into the store and started yelling at customers and employees. Investigators say Cirko started coughing and spitting inside the store. She allegedly said “I have the virus and now you are all going to get sick.”

Witnesses say she coughed and spit near the bakery section, as well as the produce area.

“When I first got the call, I was speechless. I was really dumbfounded as to why somebody would do that,” said Joe Fasula, Co-owner, Gerrity’s.

Gerrity’s said more than $35,000 worth of food and other merchandise had to be thrown out.

“My first thought was the fact that we are just going to have to throw the food out all this food and it’s so hard to get right now,” said Fasula.

The store was cleaned and disinfected. Word of the incident had shoppers talking on Thursday.

“Sometimes I can’t believe that everything has come to this really, we are living in weird times,” said Michele Rubal of Hanover Township.

“Ah, it’s terrible how could people do that,” said Dave Ksiackiewicz of Hanover Township.

“It’s terrible how people don’t get you know? The country is going crazy with people I don’t know it’s just ridiculous,” said Monika Slusser of Shickshinny.

Sources close to the investigation say Cirko was tested for COVID-19, but the results of those tests are not yet known or are not being made public.

Cirko faces numerous counts including terroristic threats and related charges. She faces up to 20 years in prison.

Right now, she’s jailed unable to post $50,000 cash bail. She’ll have a hearing next month.

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@GutRot @Val_Kyrie
Thanks for that.

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One thing I’ve noticed is that the approval rate is a rather chaotic figure. It goes up and down quite a bit so don’t stress over a week or two of results. It also bottoms out hard at ~38% approval. The true believers aren’t swayed by anything that happens.

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Compared to past Presidents Trump’s approval rating has been remarkably consistent, but even a modest uptick is really disturbing when he’s clearly and horribly bungling what is likely to become the greatest health emergency in American history.

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Hanover Fiste, you say?
“Calling Hanover Fiste!”
https://youtu.be/kw69uy3HwCE

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There are “rapid tests”, the problem is that they’re the antibody tests, which only test for your response to the virus, and not viral antigen itself, so they’re not super useful in early stages.

And they’re still fairly available (the IgG/IgM tests).

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It’s only consistent in that it bottoms out regularly on the 38% figure, but when it moves off of there it’s all over the place.

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Not really, at least in comparison to past Presidents. Every previous President we have polling data for has had more variation between their highs and lows. By comparison Trump’s approval rating has been nearly flat since he took office.

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“Christ what a germhole!”

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I think you can lie about the strength of the economy, or jobs, or how strong your army is, or how tall your building is. When the pandemic comes, it’s likely going to shrink the circle of people in the average American survivor’s life. They’ll lose people in their churches and families, celebrities and politicians. He can’t lie and say they’re not dead. He’ll blame it on China, but I think that’ll be a hollow comfort. Curious if I’ll live to find out who wins the next election.

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Wait, is this satire??

That would be a terrible idea, on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin.

First, grocery stores do not have more than the basic sanitizing setups. Certainly nothing even remotely resembling a pasteurizer.

Second, what proportion of the discarded product could even be sanitized? You’re not going to pasteurize lettuce. Washing it with a chlorine solution does work, but that’s not intended for eradicating potential viral contamination. If you let the lettuce steep in a chlorine solution that’s high enough in concentration and for long enough time to actually kill coronavirus… Let’s just say you won’t be eating that lettuce for an entirely different reason. Oh, and the equipment required to non-destructively sanitize lettuce? You won’t be seeing it anywhere in a grocery store.

Third, let’s go right back to “people are terrified.” What makes you think any sane food bank administrator would even consider taking products with even a rumor of COVID-19 contamination attached to them?

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It makes me wonder how much food the average market tosses before they consider donating it.
This numbskull unknowingly hit a freegan’s equivalent to a jackpot.

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Another Trump Pardon in the making. She might not be the hero we want; but she’ll be the hero the right gets. #freecoughinglady :us:

Bullies normally go for victim blaming, so I’m sure he’ll start blaming the dead. Saying that they only died to make him look bad, and they were all secretly Democrats any way, so good riddance.

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