This is just too funny. This is a hugely popular store in Berkeley but the one thing I always noticed were all the street people hanging around, especially near the coffee bar area.
But I guess it finallly got too much even for the most generous and well-meaning…
Is sampling an apricot taking a bite and putting it back, or scarfing the whole thing? And notice the guy didn’t say just how much cream and sugar he helped himself to…
Tony
People eating in supermarkets is one of my pet peeves. I don’t mind things that are sold by the basket/box/whatever. When my daughter was younger, she always wanted tomatoes, so we bought grape tomatoes, which are sold by the pint. So we got her a pint of grape tomatoes, which scanned as a pint no matter how much she ate. Probably the most common thing sold by the pound that I see people eating is grapes. Oh, yeah, the store will never miss a few grapes, or a quarter pound or so, but we all pay for them. . .
So sampling apricots isn’t a problem for this guy. What’s next, will he sample a gallon of gas to see if he should fill up? If he can’t tell a good apricot from a crappy one, maybe he shouldn’t be buying them, and if he has a problem with the quality at this store, maybe he shouldn’t shop there.
If you sample, you should have your sample offered to you, or ask first. No exceptions. Anything else is ill-mannered self-entitlement. Boorish petty theft.
If you sampling freeloaders out there don’t like my opinion, too bad. I’m stickin’ to it.
I only sample the tp, how else are you going to be able to tell if it is soft enough. There can be a quite a bit of variability between rolls too. But I always put them back when I’m done.
Go lie down by your dish. 
Could you imagine someone setting up a grill and cooking up a chunk of burger to see how it tastes?
How could the guy not know he was stealing? What a pig!
Seriously, there is a much bigger and chronic problem behind this story, that the sound-bit hungry and/or lazy reporter didn’t bother to mention.
People have been grazing for years in markets, and Berkeley has a LOT of homeless cum runaway types and the Bowl is in proximity to their favorite haunts.
That and the seeming belief that rules are always for the other guys.
I’ll have to try this sampling thing next visit to the class-6. (aka: liquor store)
Or the gas station. Gotta make sure your car will run okay on that brand.
I’m not sure where it came from, but I have always had an absolute horror of eating in the grocery store. As a child, I was never allowed to snack on the groceries in the cart. We waited until we got home.
It’s so common to find opened, partly eaten packages stashed here and there that I wouldn’t feel comfortable eating something that didn’t need to be weighed. I would not want someone even thinking I might be stealing.
I once saw an opened tin of sardines in the store that some one sampled. Eww…
Leaving fish and meat in the isles when someone decides that they don’t want it is the biggest issue that I have seen in Minneapolis, and that is only in some stores. In DC and Minneapolis the Homeless/freegans/dumpster divers never seemed to go into grocery stores, there are many other resources for food.