As the student body prepares for a long and cold winter, many students feel the urge to stuff their backpacks with extra food that may help them through the season. Theft from the dining halls provides a small boon for students and perennial frustration for Brown Dining Services administrators.
"Student theft is a serious issue," Peter Rossi, assistant director of purchasing and systems at Dining Services, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. "We observe an increase as the holiday breaks approach as well as during school cancellations due to snowstorms."
"Removal of any food (concealed or not) from an all-you-care-to-eat facility" is a violation of Dining Services policy, according to its Web site.
Rossi wrote that the most commonly stolen items are fruit, bagels and small condiment bottles like soy sauce. Not surprisingly, the biggest targets are the all-you-care-to-eat dining halls and late-night retail locations.
"Comparatively, we have seen less theft this year than in years past," he wrote.
One sophomore, who asked to remain anonymous, said she sometimes takes fruit, bread and plasticware from the Sharpe Refectory, even though she is aware that the practice is "illegal."
"I take it on the weekends because the dining hours are weird," she said. "If I'm going to have a brunch meal around 10 (a.m.) and I'm not going to eat until dinner, that means I'm going to be hungry in the afternoon and need something to keep me going. ... It's very convenient to get something that's relatively healthy as a snack from the Ratty."
Though it advertises meals as "all-you-care-to-eat," Dining Services bases meal plan prices on the food consumed within the dining halls. "Dining Services reserves the right to prohibit the use of backpacks or other large bags in facilities, as well as to inspect bags," according to its Web site.
From Rossi's perspective, theft drains financial resources that could be better allocated elsewhere.
The cost to replace stolen products and equipment "takes away from additional products and programs that could be offered to the meal plan customer," he wrote. "Unfortunately more time and effort is spent on this issue than we would like, but it has become necessary in our attempts to resolve the problem."
Violanta Dos Santos, a cashier at the Ratty who has worked for Dining Services for almost two years, said theft from the dining halls does not seem very prevalent.
"Sometimes students who work downstairs - especially in the kitchen - come up to take food down," she said, "but students don't take food outside" other than for take-out meals. Dos Santos estimated that more than 300 students get take-out from the Ratty everyday, though this year the cashiers are not required to keep track of exact numbers as they have in past years.
Rossi wrote that Dining Services administrators are constantly exploring strategies to curb theft. Possibilities include "purchasing bulk items instead of individual containers since smaller items are easier to conceal, staff training and awareness of the issue and continuous supervision of dining areas by our supervisors and managers."
The Ratty recently introduced a new breed of cups, more colorful and slightly larger than their predecessors, as well as new white bowls. But Rossi said the new dishes and the issue of theft are "unrelated."
"It was time to order more cups, and we decided to purchase something a little different than in previous years," he said. "The bowls fall under the same category."
