Myers Depot Metal Detectors

Poll: Coins Dropped at Drive Throughs

Dougmeister said:
Do you pick them up if you didn't drop them?
Should you?
What are the legal ramifications?
Click to expand...

Whenever I've placed my order, paid my $, and am waiting for my food to arrive, I look down below the order window. And yes, I pick up the coins there that prior customers didn't bother to pick up when they dropped.

Legal Ramifications ? I'm sure I'm at risk of going to jail for this. Probably will loose my car, my coin collection, be fined, ticketed, etc..... I'm sure if I look long and hard enough, it's probably running afoul of some law ?
 
I've done it. I don't view it any differently than picking up coins dropped in a parking lot or picking up a coin off of the sidewalk.
 
I've just recently picked up a twenty on the floor inside a gas station...

I wouldn't pick up a couple pennies, but a couple quarters is an ice cream cone!!

<°)))>{
 
Depends wehre I am when I spot the "find". At my favorite coffee place I usually pick it up and put it in the tip jar.
 
Yes I see them all the time at drive-throughs and wonder if the window person dropped them giving change to the customer or if the customer dropped them while giving the payment to the worker. Whose coins are they actually?

And yes I have picked up quarters a few times but not any other coins.
 
GLASSHOPPER1955 said:
In the grand scheme of things yes, but I meant here the customer's or the store's?
Click to expand...

I'm sure you only have to ask the question to the *right* lawyer, with the *right* phraseology.

So for example: Burger King is private property. Right ? Right. Who owns it: Answer = Burger King, a private entity/owner, right ?

Ok, who owns your house: Answer = You. A private entity/owner, right ?

Thus, ok: If I come over to your house and "find" a Rolex on your nightstand: Am I entitled to say "finders keepers" ?

So what's the value cutoff ? .25 ? $25 ? $250? $2500 ? At some point, a good lawyer will say that the value is irrelevant. In the same way that you can't help yourself to any other item on their lot or store, just because you feel like it.

So keep asking long enough and hard enough, and you will find some way that this activity is illegal.

Now if your question was "does anyone really care less?", that's a different question altogether :)
 
The bigger question here is what if there is a perfectly good cheeseburger laying there then who has a right to it? I'm thinking me...
 
I once went to a snow cone stand that was closed for the winter. There was a 6foot x 1 foot patch of sand beneath the drive through window. It was LOADED with coins. I ended up sitting with my pinpointer for nearly an hour collecting 173 coins. Since they were mostly pennies it only totaled $3.17 but it was fun.
 
In the case you presented, I would assume all coins would be of ownership of the restuarant. I have heard a manager of one type restuarant telling one of the employees "it's almost time to do a drive sweep and get the change." I've seen, and it's happened to me once or twice, that someone gives the cashier exact change and behold goes the coin spill onto the driveway because of the hand disconnect. I've never seen any drive thru restuarant make the customer get out of their car to get the change, nor have I seen a restuarant not re-issue the same change again if it didn't make it into the customers possesion. In both cases, the coins are the restuarants.

I'd think it offensive if the restuarant tried to make me pay again, because the handoff didn't complete. And I'd also find it offensive if the restuarant refused to reissue the change because an incomplete handoff. They have people to gather it, I presume when the do a walk around of the outside to clean the trash off their lot. Which many places do pretty often.
 
In some states (Florida is one) you can be jailed for failure to turn found property into the Police.
 
Just a thought, when you dig coins out of the ground in a public park, it is still property owned by the city, county, or state, so should you turn the coins you find over to the city, county, or state ? :hmmm: :?:
 
I'm sure someone is debating at this very moment whether they should post "you should ask permission from the restaurant's landscaper". :dumb:
 
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