mp@allegra.UUCP (Mark Plotnick) (07/21/85)
>From: Joseph R. Goldstone <joseph at SCRC-VIXEN>
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."