Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site allegra.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mp From: mp@allegra.UUCP (Mark Plotnick) Newsgroups: net.bizarre Subject: token stealing Message-ID: <4778@allegra.UUCP> Date: Sun, 21-Jul-85 08:51:26 EDT Article-I.D.: allegra.4778 Posted: Sun Jul 21 08:51:26 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jul-85 07:37:02 EDT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 32 >From: Joseph R. Goldstone Subject: problems in the Big City To: info-cobol at mc [From "Follow-up on the News", NYT] "I frankly couldn't think of anything more downright unhealthy," said Hugh A. Dunne, a special assistant to the president of the Transit Authority. Mr. Dunne was discussing token sucking. Transit and police officials said in February that a number of youths were stealing subway tokens - sometimes dozens a day - by sucking them from turnstile slots. The youths would either first jam the turnstiles with cardboard or simply suck out the token before the rider could go thru the turnstile. The token sits on a lever in the turnstile slot until the patron goes through. Now, according to Edward J. Silberfarb, a transit police spokesman, token sucking is a "nonsituation". "It wasn't a big problem at the time and it isn't now," Mr. Silberfarb says. He says he doesn't know how many incidents have occured recently or if any arrests have been made. "There's no token sucking squad," he says. "It's not really the kind of thing we keep seperate records on. From time to time a clerk reports an incident, and if it persists we send a plainclothes patrol there." "The story caught the interest of a lot of readers," he says. "But the size of the interest doesn't always indicate the size of the problem."