{"id":91,"date":"2006-05-29T21:25:32","date_gmt":"2006-05-30T02:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stein.everybody.org\/journal\/posts\/egg-on-wegmans-face\/"},"modified":"2013-04-27T14:18:59","modified_gmt":"2013-04-27T18:18:59","slug":"egg-on-wegmans-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/egg-on-wegmans-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Egg on Wegmans’ Face"},"content":{"rendered":"

We love Wegmans<\/a>. It’s the grocery store with the best selection, prices, and atmosphere! Wegmans is consistently on Rochester’s top 100 list and Fortune’s best workplace list. Wegmans is privately owned by the Wegman family, with Danny as the current CEO.<\/p>\n

Last year, I noticed protesters outside of the showcase Pittsford Wegmans, with signs directing people to wegmanscruelty.com<\/a>. I dismissed them as a bunch of PETA-brained vegans looking for a big target to bring attention to their radical campaigns. I didn’t pay much attention to them, until I started hearing more on the news.<\/p>\n

It turns out that they were protesting the operation of a Wegmans-owned chicken farm in the next county. Since the little farm is owned by big Wegmans, the animal-rights radicals used them to expose the “inhumane” condition of battery cages. The group created a documentary on the farm’s conditions available for download or on DVD.<\/p>\n

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In order to perform their investigation, three members of the group, Melanie Ippolito, Megan Cosgrove and Adam Durand snuck into the facility on three separate occasions to film the conditions. Some of the chickens were in bad shape, and they took them out for veterinary care.<\/p>\n

When they used the (illegally-obtained) footage to create their documentary, Wegmans came down on them hard. Each member was charged with felony burglary (which could lead to 7 years in prison), petty larceny, criminal mischief, and three counts of third-degree criminal trespassing. The criminal mischief charge was thrown out. The two girls (Melanie Ippolito and Megan Cosgrove) pled guilty to trespassing and petty larceny and were sentenced to three years of probation and 100 hours of community service. Adam Durand, however, was not offered a plea deal and had to fight it out in court.<\/p>\n

I was curious what would happen to Adam, so I turned on a Google News Alert<\/a> to follow the case. These things seem to take a while, but the case finally closed and the jury found him not guilty<\/a> of the (ridiculous) charges of felony burglary and petty larceny, but they did find him guilty of the three counts of trespassing. The maximum sentence for trespassing is 3 months in jail. While there were three counts, the maximum sentence for multiple counts would generally be 6 months. First offenders (such as Adam) usually receive just probation without jail time.<\/p>\n

Wegmans had essentially lost the case. They released a statement: <\/p>\n

We are pleased with the convictions on the trespassing charges and although we are disappointed with the other decisions, we do respect the finding of the jury. Our primary concern throughout all of this has been the safety and the security of our egg farm and its employees and with protecting our birds from diseases that intruders might introduce.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Adam was sentenced the following week, I was shocked to hear that he had been sentenced to 6 months in jail, one year of probation, a $1500 fine, and 100 hours of community service. When he asked for time to arrange for the care of his pets, he was refused and hauled off to jail.<\/p>\n

The county probation department had recommended only community service. Why the stiff sentence? Wegmans had requested<\/a> that the judge sentence him to 6 months. They got what they wanted.<\/p>\n

I’ve always liked Wegmans, but this case bothers me. Wegmans was faced with some free speech that they didn’t like. Rather than simply counter with free speech, they pressured the legal system to give a severe sentence to one of their critics. Wegmans claims that “an intrusion like Durand’s could introduce pathogens — like avian flu — capable of wiping out whole flocks of the company’s birds”. Give me a break. Yes, we’re all scared of avian flu, but the plain fact of the matter is that Wegmans’ primary concern is with their corporate image. That’s what Durand attacked and that’s what Wegmans was lashing back against.<\/p>\n

Because Wegmans took vindictive legal action instead of public relations action, I personally will not set foot in a Wegmans store until Adam is out of jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We love Wegmans. It’s the grocery store with the best selection, prices, and atmosphere! Wegmans is consistently on Rochester’s top 100 list and Fortune’s best workplace list. Wegmans is privately owned by the Wegman family, with Danny as the current CEO. Last year, I noticed protesters outside of the showcase Pittsford Wegmans, with signs directing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-citizen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeremystein.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}