Your laudable editorial about Ralph’s firing two of its cashiers for selling alcohol to minors was too easy on Ralphs. Let me see if I have the facts straight:
1) Some Pepperdine students illegally presented fake identification numerous times to Ralphs cashiers, establishing in the cashiers’ minds that the students were of legal age.
2) One day, the cashiers, remembering the fact that they had frequently seen the students’ IDs, did not illogically ask to see the IDs, but again sold them alcohol, logically presuming they had not grown any younger.
3) The cashiers were entrapped by an apparently pre-planned, clandestine undercover Alcohol Control Board sting; and for this they were fired by Ralphs.
This is just one more example of what I define as insidiously enlarging corporate irresponsibility in America. Employees, pushed to work faster by their profit-greedy corporate giant, exercise some common sense, and are penalized for it. And, in addition to being fired, may be fined by legal authorities. What for? For thinking logically?
The students are the criminals, not the cashiers. It also appears the students may have aided the Alcohol Control Board in their sting. The unanswered question is: why? In a functioning democracy, as opposed to the corporate oligarchy America has become, Ralphs would be penalized for its actions conducted without a thorough investigation of the facts and circumstances. Malibu citizens ought to boycott Ralphs for such an outrage until the cashiers are reinstated and a complete investigation completed.
Howell Hurst