"police" news and stories

Ron Henderson maintains it's a myth that police officers eat a disproportionate number of doughnuts, but his entrepreneurial fantasy involves cops selling lots of them.

Henderson recently took over Police Doughnuts from a fellow retired officer, and hopes to spin the Louisville storefront into a franchise. While he concedes there might be a few other former officers with doughnut bakeries of their own – the Internet was briefly abuzz last year with news of a small-town force in Michigan buying a century-old pastry shop -- Henderson says he's the first to fully mine the possibilities of a law enforcement theme.

And, in good law-and-order fashion, he's also trademarked the concept.

Flickr, Termin8er

The increased probability of surviving a car crash hasn't persuaded enough South Carolinians to buckle up, so the state's highway patrol has turned to a more reliable incentive: Chick-Fil-A coupons.

This Thanksgiving, the South Carolina Highway Patrol started rewarding free chicken sandwich vouchers to seat-belted drivers in three counties around Charleston. So far, officers have distributed 1200 coupons.

"We're rewarding people for doing the right thing," Lance Corporal Bob Beres explains.

But the coupons aren't reserved for do-gooders. Officers typically size up drivers for seat belt use when they're pulled over for moving violations, which means a South Carolinian caught speeding could end up with points on his license, a hefty fine, increased insurance premiums and a hand-breaded boneless chicken breast on a buttered bun.

Beres told The Greenville News that it's up to the officer whether a driver stopped for drunk driving gets a sandwich.

Wow, there's a headline I never thought I'd write.

Actor Hugh Grant was arrested in London yesterday for allegedly throwing a plastic tub filled with baked beans at photographer Ian Whittaker. Whittaker says that Grant also kicked him and yelled at him before he threw the beans at him.

A plastic container filled with baked beans? This could have been much worse. He could have thrown cans filled with beans at the photographer, or glass jars filled with tomato sauces or pickles, or maybe even cling peaches...in heavy syrup.

Grant was released on bail and no charges have been filed.

It looks like Hansel and Gretel aren't the only ones who tried to advantage of crumbs to lead them to where they wanted to go. The police in Sylva, North Carolina were able to use a very literal - not just literary - trail of cake crumbs to track down two thieves who attempted to break in to the police station last week.

The two suspects damaged the door of the station in their attempt to gain entry and, when they couldn't force the door, instead stole a sign, some flags and flagpoles before making their getaway. The door to the station was "smeared with cake and frosting" and a trail of the same sweets led along the main street, leading away from the station. It didn't take long before the detectives found their way to the two suspects, who "had cake all over them."

As you might expect from two people who smear themselves with cake and try to break into a police station, the pair had been drinking (heavily) at a birthday party in a nearby restaurant. Witnesses identified the suspects as having been serving the cake to partygoers, and then later also spotted them with the stolen goods.

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Champagne is a term that applies to sparkling wines that are from the Champagne region of France. This name is protected, in Europe, by Protected Designation of Origin status and in France by Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, both of which state that to use the name "champagne," the wine must be produced in France, in the Champagne region and in a traditional manner to produce a specific product. Everything else is just a sparkling wine, not champagne.

This standard is followed throughout Europe and many other countries, although the US, for example, does not follow it and any sparkling wine can use the word champagne, which is considered to be a generic term. In France, the word carries a premium image and a premium price, so there is an incentive for sellers to use it instead of other descriptors. Just last week, the police arrested a number of people for passing off "tens of thousands of bottles of low-priced bubbly wine" as champagne, selling it for 5 to 10 times the original price after replacing the bottles' labels with false champagne labels. Most of these wines were sold "via associations or in door-to-door sales," which goes to show that if you want a premium product, you are better off going to a reputable source.

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