ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997 TAG: 9703130027
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
Store clerks catch abuse from many
LAST SUMMER I took a part-time job as a clerk in a local convenience store to make some extra money. In general, the work was fun and interesting.
Then, there is the other part of the story. The rude, the obnoxious, the shoplifters and the nonpaying gas customers who a clerk has to deal with daily. And the underage kids who come to the store wanting to buy cigarettes. When you ask them for identification, they cuss you and call you every name in the book, knowing they aren't old enough to buy tobacco products or alcohol. Also, there are parents of underaged kids who buy them tobacco, hand it to them at the counter and dare you to say a word about this illegal practice.
On top of all this, just for working an extra job, both the state and federal governments decided that since I wanted to earn some extra money, they wanted me to pay more taxes.
Now do I understand this correctly? The governments tell me to card smokers and drinkers, and take the abuse for doing so. They say they will fine me if I don't ask for an ID from customers. They also want me to take my own, nonpaid time to prosecute. I am also to collect lottery money for them. Then, I am to pay them money in the form of higher taxes to work this job.
I used to think when I saw signs posted for months at local convenience stores saying that part-time help was needed that not many people really wanted to work. Now I know why.
ROBERT WRIGHT
ROANOKE
Why shouldn't they have house guests?
IT IS VERY disgusting to listen to the Democrats and Republicans, our so-called representatives in government, complain about people spending a night in the White House. I think there are more important things for the representatives to be concerned about. If not, they should go home.
Don't the Clintons have the right as a family to have friends spend a night in the White House, which happens to be where they live?
RUTH CUNNINGHAN
ROANOKE
Virginia lawmakers should be ashamed
I WOULD question the consciousness and motivations of the state legislature with its decision, on a technicality, not to compensate a citizen and his family for the citizen's unjust incarceration (Feb. 21 news article, ``Pardon is all he gets'').
The legislature, as a body, should hang its head in shame! I for one would gladly send my hard-earned taxed dollars to this young man and his family to help in this time of financial and psychological stress.
I can't help but wonder if the rest of us will be viewed in the same arrogant and callous manner as the legislature blithely votes on heavily tax-funded pork-barrel road projects slated for Southwest Virginia.
JAMES A. McGRATH
EGGLESTON
Police should also obey the laws
REGARDING the Virginia state trooper who was charged with reckless driving for killing someone when he hit a car while running at a very high speed while chasing a supposed speeder (Feb. 14 news article, ``Trooper found guilty in crash that killed man''):
If this were someone other than a police officer, I am sure he or she would have been charged with vehicular homicide and sentenced to prison.
Does this tell the public that state officials think that trying to write a speeding ticket is more important than a human life? I think it's time that police officers in Virginia abide by, and be punished by, the same laws that apply to everyone else. Why are they allowed to disregard the laws?
Virginia troopers or other police traveling at high speeds have passed me before, and I've seen them pull into a restaurant to eat or a service station to sit and talk.
Is Virginia becoming a Gestapo or police state?
JOHN F. ANDERSON
ABINGDON
LENGTH: Medium: 78 linesby CNB