Food services puts foot down on students abusing meal plan access
The Junction, located on northwest campus near the Mountain View Towers, announced that it will no longer be allowing students to carry out small articles of food from the dining hall.
As of last week, any student caught trying to take out food will be referred to management to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Lindsey Wiltshire, the Junction’s customer service manager, said, “In the past two months we’ve seen people fill their backpacks full of bags of chips and bring in plastic containers, then sit down and eat a sandwich, then have a pasta made and pour it into the plastic containers and take it out. It gets to the point where it’s like, we’re not your grocery store.”
Wiltshire said some customers have complained, saying that because the Junction is an all-you-can-eat service they should be allowed to take whatever they want.
“The thing is,” Wiltshire said, “we’re all-you-can-eat while you’re here, not all-you-can-eat and take with you.”
Nathaniel Lovelady, a resident of the Mountain View Towers, said the new policy punishes the many because of the few.
“If someone was taking out their whole backpack full of chips then they’re obviously breaking the rules in the old policy, so they could still get in trouble for that. But I don’t think its fair to make everybody not be able to take out everything just because of that,” Lovelady said.
Adam Sims, another Towers resident, said: “I think for the most part it could stop a lot of people just because it could frighten them like if they get caught or something like that. But I think for the most part if you have people that have been doing it, will still do it and still find ways. So, it just doesn’t make sense to me to just punish everybody else for everyone else’s misdeeds.”
Falisha Johnson, a resident assistant in the Valley View Towers, said she didn’t think the new policy was a big deal.
“The Junction is a business, and just like any other business they have a right to set their own policies. And, I mean if you go to any other all-you-can-eat place like Chuck-a-Rama they don’t have carryout policies. So I don’t know why the Junction should be any different and people are getting up in arms over it.”
Johnson said she never carried out food, and she wasn’t affected by the policy change.
The new policy still allows students to take out liquids, but only in the approved mugs which are for sale at the Junction.
John Delaney, an undeclared freshman said, “It’s probably good. I wish you could still take like one cookie out or whatever. But I like the idea of needing a mug, cause you know I’ve known people who go in with a gallon of milk and fill up the milk, you know? And that’s not right for them.
The policy change was initiated by Executive Chef Donald Donaldson. Donaldson said that the new rule was triggered by an increase of students breaking the carryout rule. He said in the past year, especially since September, he has seen students filling their backpacks with fruit, stocking up on instant oatmeal packets, and filling jugs with liquid.
“You know it’s like, if you’ve got 1,400 people and you know you see a certain amount of instances that you’ve got to make an assumption that there’s a lot more unseen, too.”
He said along with minor abuses of the policy, people were committing major theft.
“I started to think that, you know, where’s the line? It seems to be turning out that it’s got to either be a hard line or a soft line. And I had to make a decision whether it was going to be all or nothing, and unfortunately it came down to nothing,” he said.
Donaldson said he understands the perspective of students, and that he and his staff are not trying to be “dirty, rotten, sons of guns about it,” but repeated violations of the policy end up costing Dining Services a lot of money.
“A lot of drips fill up a bucket,” he said, “and that’s the way it is with this business.”
Comments and suggestions concerning this issue can be submitted to a comment box inside the Junction.
– rob.jepson@aggiemail.usu.edu