National spotlight finds NH woman fired for refusing to accept EBT card for cigarettes

Bangor Daily News ^ | June 28, 2012 | Unattributed

[QT3.14]

A convenience store clerk who was fired recently for refusing to sell cigarettes to a customer trying to pay for them with state welfare benefits has been fired, but her story has gained traction in local and national media.

According to press reports, Jackie Whiton was working at a C.N. Brown Big Apple convenience store recently when a man in his 20s attempted to purchase cigarettes using an electronic benefit transfer card, which is issued to families in New Hampshire and Maine who are on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF program. Whiton, a six-year employee of the store, refused to sell the man the cigarettes.

[silverleaf]

I give a rats ass how he spends his money

I get some say in how he spends my money

[ontap]

When foodstamp curtailment comes up th big supermarket chains always support maintaining the current system.

[ontap]

because some self-righteous busybody thinks they know better than he does how he should spend money.

You mean how he spends OUR money!!!

[bill1952]

How many thousands of pages of regulations are you willing to write to manage what such people can and cannot buy with public assistance?

You do not have to do any of that - You simply go back 10 years to where there was an approved list of foodstuffs that one could get with food stamps.

Easily understood, known by everyone in the business

[YourAdHere]

The silver lining in this story is that he won’t be getting EBT cards much longer. Keep smoking away, buddy.

[who knows what evil?]

Maybe not a ‘freeloaders’; just a ‘Free Stater’...

[arderkrag]

Oh, get over it. Plenty of people quit cold turkey. If he wants to keep smoking, great - lots of us smoke. But we don't use public funds to do it. That's the part that matters here. Leave your emotions at the door.

[mvpel]

Or maybe just an a**hole.

[who knows what evil?]

Looks like that rock thrown onto a pack of dogs just hot a ‘Free Stater’...

[mvpel]

You do not have to do any of that - You simply go back 10 years to where there was an approved list of foodstuffs that one could get with food stamps.

Again, this is not about food stamps, it's about cash assistance through TANF. There's more to life than just food. It's already not possible to buy tobacco, alcohol, aspirin, vitamins, etc with SNAP funds on an EBT.

[who knows what evil?]

Now I am beginning to understand where the local children are picking up all that ‘colorful’ language from...oops...’hot’ should have been ‘hit’.

[mvpel]

Looks like that rock thrown onto a pack of dogs just hot a ‘Free Stater’...

Woof.

When I moved to New Hampshire in November 2003, I met a fellow who'd moved here 20 years earlier for exactly the same reasons I did. The "Free State Project" has been going on for decades in New Hampshire, it just wasn't called that.

So I don't know why you're throwing out gratuitous insults like that based on your bigoted notions about so-called "Free Staters." In reality most Free Staters I know would probably have to think long and hard when choosing between starvation and accepting government welfare.

[mvpel]

If you don’t gratuitously insult people you know nothing about, you’re much less likely to see colorful language.

[grellis]

And nicotine is addictive, it’s not like he can quit cold turkey the moment he lost his job because some self-righteous busybody thinks they know better than he does how he should spend money.

Sidestepping the issue. If it were cash--HIS money--the clerk wouldn't have batted an eye. Financial assistance monies should not be spent on items such as alcohol and cigarettes. And I smoke.

[who knows what evil?]

If you don’t gratuitously insult people you know nothing about, you’re much less likely to see colorful language.

Wow...a mind-reader, as well. To paraphrase another Freeper; it's a good thing that you edumacated Free Staters came along, or the people of Red Hampshire might have wandered off into the sea and drowned.

Of course, you fine folk know what is best for the people of Red Hampshire, so they should sit down and shut up. (Where have I heard THAT before?)

[who knows what evil?]

Double-wow...I haven’t even used any ‘colorful language’...guess I don’t qualify as a ‘Free Stater’. (Tip to parents: if you’d rather your children weren’t exposed to the ‘f’ word or ‘m’fer’ every few minutes; you might want to avoid New Hampshire).

[mvpel]

To paraphrase another Freeper; it's a good thing that you edumacated Free Staters came along, or the people of Red Hampshire might have wandered off into the sea and drowned.

Judging by the election of John Lynch, you earlier movers and natives needed all the reinforcements you could get.

Why so hostile? We moved here in order to help you protect New Hampshire's long tradition of limited government, after all.

[who knows what evil?]

We moved here in order to help you protect New Hampshire's long tradition of limited government, after all.

Good luck. This 'half-native' couple is leaving in a few months.

[who knows what evil?]

Judging by the election of John Lynch, you earlier movers and natives needed all the reinforcements you could get.

Agree there...Lynch is a particularly vile son of a b*tch. 'Colorful language'; but well deserved in this case. Spit.

[Cyber Liberty]

He could have corrected her and let her stay on but NO he fired her for having a conscience.

This story was up last week. She wasn't fired for "having a conscience." She was fired for belittling the customer (whether he deserved it or not), embarrassing him in front of the other customers. Stigmatizing welfare recipients is a cardinal no-no to the gummint.

(If I were the boss, I'd have given her a raise and a bonus, but I'm evil.)