Boy faces $300 fine for lollipop on bus
 

Personally I chock this up to "If you can't do the time don't do the crime" files. Food is food, candy or burger, something you eat is FOOD. Period.

Should everyone get a "one free pass" as the father of the boy suggested in "Prendiz said his son got no warning before being cited."?

I stand on the side of it being another sign that this society is getting rediculous. Eating a lollypop on a bus gets you a court appointment and a fine of $300 :rolleyes:

The driver should have told him to throw it away.It would be another matter if he was ripping the seats up or drawing on them , but sitting with a lollypop in his mouth only deserves a telling off in my book.

Ordinace says no eating.. he was eating... did he think the rule did not apply to him? Is he that special?

It's an example of how society is getting ridiculous... that people think that rules do not apply to them, and they should be able to get away with doing whatever they want.

The father is the one who's wasting the courts time... A lollipop is food. The kid was sucking the lollipop. He was guilty. pay the fine and move on.

Yeah, I can see how the boy's parents would have an issue with it, but as has been said, he DID break a clearly understood rule, and it IS his fault. So yeah... I think the kid's dad needs to suck it up, pay the fine, and tell his kid to stop being an idiot and don't break simple rules.

is gum outlawed too?

But where does it end?

Had the kid been eating a Tic Tac, would that be a $300 fine?

A cough drop?

A Listerine breath stip?

No, common sense was lost in the shuffle.

If the kid had been warned or if he had a previous history of trouble, then fine him.

But out of the blue for a sucker is silly.

Well this comes from the other thread regarding "pussification of America". This kid ain't no pussy. He's got stones. He should have told the bus driver to fuck off. He ain't no wimp. He's a 2005 version of James Dean. Rah rah rah.

Seriously though, if the bus had stopped short and the kid choked on his lollipop and suffered brain damage, his old man would be suing saying the driver had a responsibility to enforce the rules.

The father should pay the whole fine then teach his kid respect. Maybe if that caught on we could call it "respectication of America".

I think both parties are to blame for this.. it's a ridiculous law and the father shouldn't be making a big deal out of it..

There's a difference between those three items and a lollipop. The tic tac, cough drop and breath strip all stay in your mouth. The lolly, doesn't always, the person will take it out to talk, and can get sticky messes on the seats...

Do you see that you have made a judgement call about that?

Yet the law as it stands (presumably) calls those "food". No arguments, fine issued.

That is the problem with applying law without common sense.

he was warned....the article says the bus driver told them repeatedly no eating or drinking.....how much more warned can you get?

I don't disagree that the law has been applied without common sense. Where I draw exception... and I know I am not going to articulate this clearly --

The kid did something wrong.
Unless he's illiterate, he could read the sign on the bus (I"m sure there was one, they're all over NJ transit buses) he CHOSE to eat his lollipop anyhow.
He got caught.
Rather than accept responsibility for his actions...
He whined... and got his daddy involved in this.


I'd have more respect for the kid, if he paid the fine, then worked towards getting the law changed. I am sure this boy and his father didn't give two seconds thought about this law until it applied to them. and the only reason why they are fussing now, is because they got caught breaking it.

Accept responsibility. Work towards changing it.

Where?

I'm of the opinion that yes, ALL those things you listed should be. Have you sat down on a bus seat and sat on someone's hard candy? The other day a lady was with a covered cup of coffee, bus stopped short and the coffee spilled just enough to ruin a seat for someone else, and onto someone's sleeve.

I ride the bus every day and very few people pay attention to the No Food, No Radios, No Smoking rules.

And in Singapore, gum is outlawed.

If any kind of food deserves a fineits candy. How often do you see gum stuck to the seats on a bus? or on the floor? or a piece of hard candy slapped to a wall and stuck there? candy is the type of food taht makes the biggest mess and attracts the most insects, which is exatly the type of thing the rule is trying to stop.

Kids probably have the least respect for a bus, have any of you sat on a clean school bus ever? There's always a layer of candyt residue sludge on all of them, and wrappers of shit pushed into the seats etc.

If the kid didnt know before to not eat on the bus he does now.

The bus company that goes from my area into NYC has gone so far as to prohibit cell phone use... I've gotten on the bus with a bottle of water in my hand that I am putting in my bag, and have been told to make sure that it stays in the bag. This bus company does reserve the right to eject yourself from the bus if you don't follow the rules.

but give a little lee way , thats all Im saying . do you not remember what it was like to be a child ? Its not (in my mind ) a big thing to eat a lollypop on a bus . Why bring the courts into it and criminalise him over something like that. Im sure its not a 'permanent record' sort of thing but it still brings him into contact with the court system over something that could be dealt with on a more personal level.

14 is not exactly a child, he's old enough to know better. To take it to the extreme, if he murdered someone, we wouldn't excuse it as - -oh he's just a child, remember what it was like when you were a child.

At 14, I had a healthy respect for the law. If a sign on the bus said no food or drink, you can be darn sure I would heed the sign.

Lines have to be drawn, stepping over the line opens you up to consequences. In this case the line was clear, no food. The boy stepped over the line, he should not be shielded from the consequences because he only put a toe over the line.

That's because you were taught to have a healthy respect for the law. What is this 14 year olds father teaching him? For me, the message is clear. Do what you want, and if challenged...abuse the court system with it. The fine shold now include all court costs.

Ive never been in trouble with the law either by the way and it should be punished but I dont think it should be a court issue , thats all.

I can understand penalizing the kid. 14 IS old enough to be a little more respectful of other people's property. But a $300 or even a $90 fine is ridiculous over a lollypop or any other minor infraction. That's more than the average parking ticket, fer gods'sakes!
Some other disciplinary action seems to be called for - a month of detention? Community service in which he cleans the public buses? Something like that - something useful. You think he's going to care that much if his dad pays a fine for him?? Uh uh. Clean a few floors and that'll make an actual difference.

I remember being a kid and I remember when I screwed up, my mother made me understand that what I did was wrong and was responsible for it.

She didn't go trying to soften the blow or make excuses for me. I got the full brunt of my actions.

That's what missing today when it comes to issues like this. Why didn't the father pay the fine and then tell the kid he has to pay it back? What an opportunity squandered to show regard and respect for authority. Even the father refusing to plead guilty with his son is showing his son that rules and laws are unimportant depending on how one interprets those laws.

Like I said earlier, if the kid choked on the lollipop, the father all of sudden would want the law on his side and would wonder why the rules weren't enforced. You can't have it both ways.

I agree with JustJess in that what's catching my eye is the magnitude of the fine.

The kid broke the rules and should be punished, but a sheriff's deputy using taxpayer time and money to write a ticket for a sucker on a bus? That's ridiculous, as is the fact that unilaterally the fine is $300. Why don't the bus drivers have the jurisdiction? And didn't that cop have anything better to do than ride around on buses?

I'm under the impression that the fine is in place in an effort to maintain the buses, and to a point the dad is right, everybody makes mistakes. So in a minor instance like this why isn't it an escalating fine, something like first offense with no damage either a warning or like $25 fine, something token to prove that they're serious and then with further offenses the fines would escalate.

If you ask me the cop was just having a bad day, it's happened to me, a cop was pissed off that I'd almost gotten away from him (wasn't actively evading, just saw him start come around the corner so I started down side streets before he could turn his lights on) since he couldn't charge me with anything since I pulled over when he turned his lights on he "modified" the registration ticket that he was writing me, rather than an $80 fine he wrote it for a violation that was supposed to cost me $1000. Things like this are entirely too subjective.

Yes, God yes.

$300 dollars, I haven't gotten a speeding ticket for that much, and speeding poses a much greater risk to the public than a sticky bus seat.

So the kid broke the rule, ok, that's fine, punish the kid, but $300 is WAY too much, and at that point the punishment goes to the parents, not the kid who actually broke the rule.

Seems simple to me. Even if the law is silly, it's the law. If you break the law, you get punished. The spirit of the law is keeping the bus clean. Let's say the kid finishes the lollipop and tosses the stick on the floor. That's why the law is there.

They'll find the kid guilty, and if the judge is self righteous, the father will be repremanded for being an idiot. Who takes a $90 ticket to court?

Those of you saying the fine is out of place because it's a lollipop. I assume then the fine is okay if it was a hamburger and fries?

The high price of the fine is to be a deterrent. If it was low, then what would the deterrent be, just a "right to eat on bus food tax?"

The fine is an established punishment, the judge presiding over this case can determine the right punishment of either a monitary fine, probation, community service and inject common sense.

Lebell, I don't want the officers interpreting laws with common sense, they should enforce all laws equally without predjudice. It's the judges duty to interpret and inject such common sense.

For everyone who's said, "Well, what's 'food' under the law?" I say this: that's why we have judges--their job is to interpret the law and determine what the lawmakers meant when they drafted the law. So if you want to fight it and go to court, the judge can determine whether or not you really had "food."

As for the $300 fine, I agree that it makes a good deterrent. Any less and people would probably take their chances.

It's funny--in my town, the bus driver will tell you to throw things away that aren't allowed on the bus--coffee, candy, etc. I'm surprised that the driver did not do so in this case.

No it's not out of place just because it was a lollipop, a $300 dollar fine for eating ANY food on a public bus is way too high. Even the revised $90 is pretty hefty. We're not talking about a life endangering activity here, it causes a mess and an inconvinience, but not enough of one for the fine to be over $50 dollars. I personally believe that public service would be a much more effective punishment, many people would be willing to pay the "right to eat on bus food tax" as you put it if it was just a monetary fine, but you take time out of their day, and make them do some physical labor, they'll become a lot less willing to break the rules.

This sentence caught my eye. Potentially eating food on a bus is a life endangering activity. How many times has your bus gone over a bump too hard? Say that happens while you have something in your mouth--choking is a definite possibility. Or like someone pointed out above--what if the kid had hit the end of the stick on something when the bus came to a sudden stop and injured himself? What if a woman has a very hot cup of coffee and spills it on someone, causing burns? What if someone in the bus is allergic to what you're eating and has an anaphylactic reaction? If someone were trying to eat cooked shrimp on that bus, my roommate would be in a world of hurt--and the medical bills the eater would face from the incident would certainly add up to more than a $300 fine.

It's the equivalent to a littering fine. Around my area if you litter you have to pay well above $1000. The problem here is that the kid obviously broke the rules, and is pleading not guilty. They should throw the book at him.

More than likely he didn't come on the bus with the l olly -- but pulled it out mid-trip.

Ok, let me get a little more specific, It's not a life endangering activity to OTHERS. The allergic reactions of other people are just as likely to happen in a restaraunt as well, which is also a public setting. The coffee thing, could happen in a restaraunt or diner as well, but you don't see any fines for having a cup of joe in them.

The rule is about keeping the bus clean, not the general safety of the public. And as I stated before, my personal belief is that public service would be a far better deterent than a monetary fine. The kid is going to understand why he shouldn't have a sucker on the bus a lot better if he spends 20 hours cleaning gum and candy off of bus seats than if his dad pays a $90 fine.

I think that public service, in the way of going around and picking up the litter, would be a far better deterrent to littering than a monetary fine.

:lol: I agree with that. It would serve to teach the boy (and the father) the value of following the rules.

for some people with infinite time on their hands what deterrent is that? yes it sucks to be part of the Saturday morning breakfast club picking up trash for 8 Saturdays, but quite honestly, a $300 fine can make the difference of owning an Xbox or iPod for some kid. I still think that monetary fines have their place and have their own way of deterrence.

In fact I believe in this instance the monetary fine is MORE of a deterrence because they don't want to pay it.

I think the kid should be punished, not the parents. A fourteen year old probably doesn't have $300 handy so the parents might have to pay it. Even if they make him pay it back over the next year or so (which they certainly should) it's really the parents who get the real immediate brunt of the punishment. $300 paid off over a few years of summer jobs isn't much of a punishment at all. He's still a kid, at fourteen, but old enough to know better, to read the signs and to be kept in line. There is no blame on the parents here I think, and I don't think anyone's mentioned that, so that's good. The $90 fine should be good enough, I think, and even better would be that and a small amount of community service.

Who cares how much the fine is? It could be a million dollars for all I care. Obey the rules of the bus (which you agree to and accept the consequences by buying a ticket and boarding) and you don't have to give a god damn about the severity of the punishment. The fine is there to prevent people from doing it, as a deterrent, not as a slight frustration if you just so happen to get caught.

I'm glad this is going to court, where ridiculous laws that overzealous police officers waste time out of their actual fight of REAL crime to enforce are shown to be ridiculous and offerend the temperance of a fair interpretation of the event.

I hope he's unconditionally discharged.

I like the idea of public service or community service. Why not both then? $500 fine AND the kid has to serve 10 Saturdays 8AM-5PM cleaning up litter, graffiti, gum etc.

Excellent idea! That way, both justice, public service are served and the kid learns a valuable lesson and character building.

He's lucky to be alive!!

The parents weren't at fault until the father got involved.
This is when the father made his parentla mistake. It is his responsibility to teach his son to follow the laws, and that there are consequences for breaking the law. The father and Michael pleaded 'not guilty', despite the fact that the kid was clearly breaking the law. The kid should do community service, and the father should pay the fine.