Firing squad ends clerk's EBT stand
By Howie Carr
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Boston Herald
Jackie Whiton, age 65, had worked as a cashier at the Big Apple convenience store in Peterborough, N.H., for years. But then a couple of weeks ago she committed a firing offense.
She refused to allow a welfare recipient to use his EBT card to buy a pack of smokes.
How dare a taxpayer say no to a member of the non-working class? This is verboten in Obama's America.
So she was fired. That'll teach her. The gimme guy was a young man, about 20, and when he asked for cigarettes, Jackie Whiton handed them to him but asked for his ID. He handed her his EBT card.
"I said to him, 'Do you think that the man in line behind you and the lady behind him want to buy you your cigarettes?' And he said 'Yes.' Then he said, 'Give me back my card.' And I said, 'Give me back my cigarettes.' "
The kid left and the man behind him in line then told Jackie Whiton, "You said just exactly what I was thinking."
"I've never seen the likes of it," she was saying Monday night. "People who could work using welfare money to buy cigarettes and beer? And it happens all the time. A friend of mine was in another store last week and watched a woman buy three 18-packs of beer with an EBT card."
After her stand, things at Big Apple went downhill quickly for Jackie Whiton. Her manager called the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services and was told that cigarettes — and beer — can be purchased with a cash (as opposed to a food) EBT card.
"We're not real happy about it," a department spokesman said yesterday. But the only place the card is prohibited is in casinos, liquor stores and "venues of adult entertainment."
So you can buy Bud Light with your free Obama bucks, but not vodka. Does this make any sense?
The next day, the 20-year-old's "foster mother" showed up at the Big Apple to complain about how her "son" had been mistreated. Jackie Whiton talked back again.
"I told her, 'Use the money you get from the state to buy his cigarettes.' She said, 'Absolutely not.' "
Jackie, don't you understand? What's theirs is theirs and what's yours is theirs. Whiton's manager told her she could no longer refuse to sell cigarettes or beer to welfare recipients. So she gave her notice to the manager, but was still working behind the counter when another youth came in the store with an EBT card looking for cigarettes.
"He was very capable of working," Jackie said, "so I told him to get a J-O-B."
A few minutes later, she was fired. A spokesman for the 78-store chain said yesterday: "Company policy is to follow rules and regulations, and the sale of cigarettes to EBT card-holders is legal. She didn't wish to follow company policy, so she was let go after four years."
Too bad Big Apple recycles their surveillance video after 10 days. If only she could post her last stand on YouTube, Jackie Whiton might be the next Bus Lady.
