Too Bad You Can’t Buy Protection From Wisecracking Store Clerks

Pearl Rotkel was in the checkout line at the Ralphs store in Rancho Bernardo recently when she saw something that made her mad.

Two teen-age boys in front of her wanted to buy some condoms, having selected a brightly colored pack from a display in a grocery aisle.

The male clerk, in his early 20s, decided either to play it safe or have a little fun at the boys’ expense.

The clerk shouted to the manager, “Do you have to be 16 to buy condoms?” Curious heads swirled and the boys instantly wanted to die of embarrassment.

“Yes, I think so,” replied the manager. “It’s against the law.”

No matter. The teen-agers had already bolted the store, sans prophylactics.

Rotkel, 67, quizzed the clerk and manager. She got the feeling they were fudging.

She checked with pharmacies and other stores. No one had heard of such a law. (For good reason: The district attorney’s office says there is none.)

Rotkel used to work with teen-agers in the federal War on Poverty. She doesn’t like it when teen-agers get treated “with disrespect.”

She fired off a letter to Ralphs corporate headquarters:

“This was a terrible thing to have occurred. First, by embarrassing the boys, they may never buy condoms.

“This will put them and the community at greater risk for AIDS! Secondly, no one has the right, by law, to impose his personal morals on anyone else.”

Al Marasca, executive vice president for Ralphs, says company policy is for condoms to be sold without age restrictions. But he noted that Ralphs is a big chain:

“I can’t guarantee what 18,000 employees will do.”

The store manager in Rancho Bernardo, who asked to be nameless, said he had been unsure whether condoms are age-restricted and thus had decided to be careful.

Now, though, the word has come from corporate: Condoms will be sold to anybody with money. “I hate to see teen-agers buying condoms, but if that’s the law, that’s what we’ll do,” said the no-name-please manager.

Rotkel is happy that her Ralphs has mended its ways. But now she’s heard that other kinds of stores may also be discouraging teen-agers from buying condoms.

She may contact “60 Minutes.”

Not-So-Fond Memories of Oceanside

Things of note.

* Don’t look for Gustav Hasford, author of “The Short-Timers” (the basis for the movie “Full Metal Jacket”), to get any thank-you notes from the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce.

In his just-published paperback, “A Gypsy Good Time,” Hasford remembers Oceanside of the mid-1970s:

“The civilian slop chute off base was called Oceanside, a pocket paradise of institutionalized sleaze, fertile soil for bad country-Western bands and cheap-ugly women . . . “Outside the bus station, in the hot night, marijuana dealers and pimps, open for business, were strutting up and down the broken white line in the center of the street, flipping fat coins of Mexican gold into the air and jaywalking in front of gliding police cars.”

* Pat Wright, the Libertarian candidate in the 76th Assembly District, is slamming Democratic incumbent Mike Gotch as a big-spending liberal and Republican candidate Dick Delake for opposing gay rights and abortion.

Wright’s campaign slogan: “Keep Gotch Out of Your Wallet. Keep Delake Out of Your Bedroom.”

* Academic wars, mayoral style.

Steve Danon is field coordinator (precinct walkers, phone banks, etc.) for Susan Golding. Peter Andersen holds the same job for Peter Navarro.

Danon was a student of Andersen’s at San Diego State.

* The Wall Street Journal notes the difference between Hughes Aircraft and General Dynamics when it comes to laying off thousands of longtime employees.

Hughes is offering severance packages of pay, health benefits and tuition reimbursement, averaging $17,000 per laid-off employee.

General Dynamics, “despite a growing cash hoard from selling non-core operations,” thinks 60 days’ notice is plenty good enough for axed employees in San Diego and elsewhere.

Getting the Last Laugh

The line making the rounds in Hillcrest is that the Tailhook/Tomcat Follies scandal proves only one point:

Heterosexuals are inherently unfit for military service.