Citrus Patrol : Stores Post Guards on Orange Juice

Stock clerks are on guard, managers are on edge, and lousy jokes are circulating in West San Fernando Valley grocery stores in the wake of three orange juice tampering incidents last week.

And everyone wants to be the one who catches the villain.

“Actually, I’d kind of like it, as long as nobody gets hurt,” said Stacy Peter, 18, who was stationed in a pink lawn chair to guard the refrigerated juice cooler at an Alpha Beta in Woodland Hills one recent night. “Catching someone would be kind of fun. Nothing ever happens in the market.”

Peter, who spent her orange juice patrol shift reading Mademoiselle magazine and eating corn chips, said she had her eye out for a certain type of person. “I picture him unkempt, not showered. That’s the image that comes to my mind because of all the movies you see. I mean, you don’t see someone all dressed up doing something like this.”

No Victims Reported

There have been no reports of anyone poisoned by the orange juice, Los Angeles police said, even though three cartons were pierced by needles from hypodermic syringes. In all three incidents, the needles pinned notes to the cartons warning about unsafe packaging.

Police were continuing tests of juice from the three cartons. The most recent test results showed no contamination by a dangerous substance, authorities said. No suspects have been identified.

To prevent further incidents, West Valley stores have chosen a variety of surveillance strategies. Some have brought in uniformed security guards, some have employed undercover agents, and a few have stationed stock clerks such as Peter on round-the-clock juice patrol.

Brings Date

Brian Kahn, for instance, was called in on his night off to work the 4-to-midnight shift last Thursday at an Alpha Beta store in Canoga Park. He had to cancel plans for a movie, and invited his date to join him at the store, where they watched the orange juice instead.

“I told all my friends to come visit me,” said Kahn, 17, who patrolled the juice shelf from his perch on a cart 3 feet away.

Kahn said customers gave him strange looks all night long. “One lady lectured me about how society is so degraded and soon we’d have to guard all the food,” he said.

Carton juice sales were down, Kahn said, but substitutes were selling fast. Those who did buy cartons of orange juice, he said, were careful to grab them from the back of the shelf.

Among grocery store employees, syringe jokes were spreading. “There’s a sale on orange juice, and you get a free syringe,” Peter said.

Similar jokes were heard in other stores. “A customer asked me for some orange juice, and I said, ‘Would you like one with a syringe in it?’ ” said Thomas Raheb, who stocks the dairy and juice shelves at the Vons in Tarzana.

Store managers and grocery store officials, meanwhile, were not joking. Most would not talk about the tamperings or their surveillance techniques for fear of inspiring copycat incidents.

“We wouldn’t want anyone to know exactly what we were doing,” said Judy Decker, spokeswoman for Lucky, which has not been hit with any cases of tampering. “But we’re taking appropriate steps. You have to take every precaution in case it’s not a hoax.”

Thrives on Publicity

A specialist in tampering cases who has acted as a consultant for the FBI said store executives are right to be concerned about more tampering incidents.

“If there’s anything we know about tampering, it’s that it feeds on press accounts,” said Park Deitz, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. “Each intensely publicized case creates 30 new crimes.”

While some managers refused to talk about the problem, others said they’d like the culprit to be nabbed in their store. “I know that Vons would like to be the store to catch him,” said Leon Elterman, night manager at the Vons in Tarzana. “Actually, I’d like to be the one to catch him.”

If Peter turns out to be the one, she will leap from her lawn chair at Alpha Beta to call security officers, she said. But she had an alternative plan in case she couldn’t get to the phone in time: “If it was really him I could scream and grab a six-pack” to club him with, she said.

Police said they have not pinpointed a motive, but Deitz said the “unsafe packaging” note left on one of the orange juice cartons points to one possibility: “That suggests that this person has rationalized that this is a socially useful thing to do,” he said.

Shoppers offered other ideas.

“My theory is that the guy is a drug addict who takes the bus, because all the stores are along the 245 bus line,” said Gary Young, 36, during a shopping trip to the Tarzana Vons last week. “Or maybe something happened that he doesn’t like, like he’s a former employee, or a carton fell on his kitchen floor and broke.”

Some Sales Down

Some West Valley grocery stores reported no change in orange juice sales, while others said they have experienced sharp declines.

“People don’t even come near this corner anymore,” said Nelson Aponte, a stock clerk at the Alpha Beta on Topanga Canyon Boulevard where one of the tampered cartons was found.

Darla Enos, a supervisor at an Alpha Beta in Canoga Park, said the orange juice shelf was nearly full Thursday afternoon. “It looks like we haven’t sold any other brand except our own,” she said.

The tampered cartons were found on shelves outside the orange juice section Wednesday at the Hughes Market in the 22300 block of Sherman Way in Canoga Park, Tuesday at the Alpha Beta on the 6200 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills, and Monday at the Vons in the 23300 block of Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills. The first two incidents involved Minute Maid orange juice, and the third involved Citrus Hill brand.

To catch whoever pinned the ominous notes on the cartons, supermarket officials vowed to carry on the watch as long as necessary.

“We’ll continue to have increased security until the person has been apprehended,” said Mary McAboy, spokeswoman for Vons.