Proving once again that being poor doesn't necessarily mean you're stupid, nine food stamp recipients in Maine found a loophole that allowed them to get cigarettes and booze.
Sadly, their state-financed bonanza has ended thanks to do-gooder investigators.
The folks at the Hannaford Supermarket in Portland were noticing some peculiar behavior among the less well-to-do in their community. Poor people were buying ridiculous quantities of Smiling Hill Farm milk in quart bottles.
Stranger still, they would come back soon thereafter to return the empty bottles for the $1.50-a-pop deposit.
"We became aware it was a serious problem," Hannaford spokeswoman Caren Epstein said.
"We started hearing from customers and associates in the store that people were purchasing this milk, then were going into the men's room and dumping the milk out and returning it for deposits. Sometimes it would be the men's room or the gutter or in front of the store."
The crafty indigents would then use their ill-gotten cash to buy goodies that can't normally be bought with food stamp, like beer and smokes.
But the good times are over -- five of the nine people busted have lost their benefits and the other four are undergoing counseling. And Hannaford has instituted a six-bottle limit on Smiling Hill milk purchases.
"Clearly, this is fraud," said Lynn Kippax, spokeswoman Maine's Department of Health and Human Services. "Food stamps were for food. They're not for booze or cigarettes or anything like that."
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