Fly in Your Soup? How About a Bug in Your Booth? : Privacy: Some fast-food restaurants and convenience stores use concealed recorders, according to firm that sells the systems. That’s news to most of the public.

At some Dunkin’ Donuts, the walls have ears.

So the next time you settle down over coffee and a cruller to trade gossip with a friend, keep in mind that hidden microphones may be recording the dirt you dish.

Manager Tony Wright insists he’s not being nosy. It’s just another way to increase security and keep employees on their toes, he said. He would never listen to customer conversations, he said.

“Do you think I would waste my time?” said Wright, who manages five Dunkin’ Donuts in Concord.

Use of concealed recorders is widespread at fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and other businesses, according to one company that sells them.

But unlike anti-shoplifting mirrors and surveillance cameras seen throughout retail America these days, hidden microphones are news to most of the public, judging from interviews Thursday at two microphone-equipped Dunkin’ Donuts in New Hampshire’s capital.

“Knowing this, I would never have a conversation in here,” said customer Frank Bowser, a private investigator who was discussing a case with a partner. “I think the general public would be in an uproar to know that every time they come in for a cup of coffee and a doughnut they could be heard.”

Other customers, including Nick and Thalia Hondrogen, said they were more offended by cigarette smoke than by listening devices.

Nonetheless, they were surprised.

“It’s like spying. It sounds like Nazism or the KGB. It’s not American,” Hondrogen said. “Many times you say things to close friends you don’t want overheard.”

The systems also were news--unwelcome, at that--at Dunkin’ Donuts corporate headquarters in Randolph, Mass.

Any system powerful enough to record customers’ conversations would be “highly inappropriate” and a violation of company policy, spokesman Bill Chiccarelli said.

Still, store owners are using them. Jeff Meuse, owner of National Video Security Inc. of Manchester, said Friday he has installed 500 systems throughout the Northeast in the last five years; of those, about 300 had audio monitoring. Dunkin’ Donuts is his biggest customer, he said.

Shops that have the monitoring systems display small stickers on their doors saying, “Audio monitoring on the premises.”

All but the loudest customers are safe with many systems. At one Dunkin’ Donuts, Wright demonstrated that a customer standing at the counter below the single mike in the ceiling had to speak loudly and distinctly to be heard above the din of coffee grinders, staff and general restaurant noise.

The systems can be far more sophisticated, however. Lewis Weiss, chief executive officer of Louroe Electronics Inc. of Van Nuys, Calif., said his company’s systems can pick up conversations within 30 feet.

“Unfortunately, this is going to be the future until we get to the point where there is minimal crime in this country,” Weiss said. “Until then, store owners are going to have to have these devices to protect their employees and their customers.”

The American Civil Liberties Union grudgingly accepts surveillance cameras and audio equipment at store and restaurant cash registers, providing customers and staff are notified.

“We would prefer not to see them at all, but if and when it does happen, we would strongly (want) there to be actual and functional notification,” ACLU spokesman Milind Shah said in New York. “Often a sign on the door is not enough.”

Federal law requires stores to post signs informing customers they might be monitored, and customers should take notice, Weiss said.

“There is no invasion of privacy in a public store like a Circle K or a Dunkin’ Donuts because you can’t carry on a private conversation there,” he said.