See my RAVE for the conclusion to the sunglass saga...

I went to Bamboo once. The food was what I think of as crappy college food, and the service was mediocre. Never had a reason to go back. I sure hope the place bucks up for you Breanna.

Maplesyrup that makes me go ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Don't eat anything. The waitress may be dating the cook.

I went back the minute I realized my glasses weren't in their case. Since it was dark when we left the Bamboo, I didn't need them until the next morning. And I agree that taking them off the waitress' head may not have been the best way to reposess them, but I anticipated that she'd deny them being mine, and figured I'd rather have them when that debate transpired.

I spoke with the manager this morning, and she is eager to resolve the situation. We are meeting within the next 24 hours to come up with an appropriate solution. I'll post the final outcome as soon as things are wrapped up. But as of right now, I'm relieved to know that the Bamboo has a strong committment to customer satisfaction.

When I first read the title I thought it said Bamboo Suncatchers - that's what I get for reading too quickly. :)

1. Wiki should not be used to define legal terms.
2. Washington State law says that this is theft.
To wit: RCW 9A.56.020 (1) (c) To appropriate lost or misdelivered property or services of another...with intent to deprive him or her of such property.
3. It would be theft 3 (a misdemeanor) due to the value of said sunglasses (under $250).
4. The victim can choose to prosecute or not.

So the letter of the law says theft.
The rest of the hand-wringing in this thread is mere speculation by people who either don't know the law here where we live or choose not to recognize it.

sam-c, too funny, i also thought when first reading the title of the post that the thread was about people steeling bamboo sunglasses. And wondered to myself who would want to do that. Then, the post kept getting responses so I had to open it up and figure out what it was all about.

I am glad to see that after a weeks of post most people on the forum are sane enough to realize that a waitress taking the glasses for herself is steeling and is wrong.

Sarahscoot, I agree with your post. I dont think I think it is a bit bold to take the sunglasses off of the waitresses head. I do not think I would have done that. However, I do have to defend Breanna a bit because I have noticed that you as well as others have said she was wrong to wait 15+ hours to contact the restaurant. I dont know about anybody else but sometimes it takes me up to 24 hours to realize when I last had a misplaced item. I believe that is how come most restaurants have lost and found boxes that store the item for more than 24 hours.

And on a different note, does anyone else think it was just as bold for the waitress to admit that she stole the sunglasses?!

JoB, if you look through the lense and/or hold the sunglasses it is pretty easy to distinguish between good sunglasses and knock offs. The knock offs typically do not have good lenses and are typically alot lighter.

I was pretty much with you, Breanna, until you said you snatched the sunglasses off the waitress's head. That seems excessively bold, and could have caused you quite a headache if you were mistaken and they were not yours. I don't agree with how you handled that, but then again, I didn't agree with several aspects of how you handled the situation from the beginning: waiting 15 hours before contacting the restaurant, especially.

I definitely don't condone the waitress's actions, and there's no doubt that it's theft, but I also don't condone yours, and I think that's why you're getting some resistance from commenters here.

austin...

pleas let us know when you are scheduling this performance:)

it would be interesting to see who came out to watch ;->

Yeah, stumbling around, say, the junction blind and pantsless would be pretty inappropriate for a tuesday morning. I'll try to wait until I've had some pints in me first.

(PS I know they're not bamboo sunglasses, that's just what the post title made me think)

one habit I picked up from my mom was doing doing a whole scan of a restaurant table before I leave, but sometimes all the stuff on the table blends together.

Austin..

LOL.. now that is an image i could do without:)

My experience has been that far more people go out of their way to return things than not... i feel lucky that so many people have my back... most days i can use a little help:)

I am working at training myself with these glasses... it's not good to go in public naked ;->

I lost a pair of prescription giorgio armanis under similar circumstances as the OP (left them on a table, came back a few minutes later and they were gone forever); I don't even want to think about what those cost. The lenses alone.. ugh.
That was some time ago, and in the intervening years I've managed to train myself to my glasses pretty strictly. The one advantage to being somewhat sightless I suppose. That's become my trick- if you're blind and light sensitive, leaving your glasses behind is like forgetting to wear pants.

In other news, when I was new to west seattle my housemate lost his cell phone on the ped path somewhere under the bridge while he was biking to work one day. A pair of girls found the phone and used it to track one of his friends down, who then referred them to me. They met me at luna park and returned the phone. It wasn't a super nice phone or anything but it did have all his address book information it it, so it was really awesome that they took the time to see it back to its rightful owner.

hey guys... some of us wear expensive sunglasses to better protect our eyes.. mine were more than $170... because that's what i had to pay to get a lens big enough that wrapped around for side protection and with enough ultraviolet protection to avoid eye strain while driving... i can avoid eyestrain from the lights of oncoming cars at night with these glasses.. and still see well in all light levels. they are worth every penny.

still.. i have left them on the table before..

because i can't see well without them... they are literally my glasses... i generally do go back immediately.. and generally they have not yet been found by waitstaff even when the table is cleared. If i am distracted when i leave it can sometimes take me a while to realize that my head hurts because i am squinting to see:(

Once a manager was standing in the door with a smile on his face and my glasses in his hand.

I have been lucky so far... but one of these days i am going to find myself trundling down to the optician to replace them:(

as for scratches.. a better quality lens can be polished to remove most minor scratches unless the UV coating is on the outside of the lens... tho the salespeople sure don't like to point that out...

and i think they can be polished and re-coated even then by a good optical shop.

i am not familiar with bamboo so couldn't tell you if it is possible to repair them or not.

as for the law, i went beyond "wiki-law" and was surprised to find that "finders keepers losers weepers" or "possession is 9/10 of the law" are no more than social contrivances to rationalize keeping something that we know belongs to someone else... however.. they are common enough sayings because they are the common reaction to found items...

otherwise we would never rave about the person who returned the item we misplaced...

had these been a cheap pair of sunglasses instead of expensive... i suspect that this conversation would have been a lot less heated if it had been started at all.

And that's too bad because the cheap sunglasses may be as important to the person who purchased them as those costing substantially more... the price shouldn't matter so much, should it? But it does... both in conversation and in what we keep when we find it abandoned.

With the knockoffs these days.. i wouldn't know a cheap pair of sunglasses from an expensive if i found them...

unless of course they were mine .. or someone else's prescription :) with those i could tell right away .. as could any fool who put them on their face ;->

(when I first saw the post heading, I thought- who'd wanna steel sunglasses made out of bamboo?)

I read through the posts and I don't understand why there was a debate about whether or not this was a theft?!

If someone left their credit card on the table, should a server keep that and start using it (maybe to buy a pair of sunglasses)? NO!
how are sunglasses different? it's someone's property- not the property of the server/ busser.

In waiting tables in the past, there were a couple times I snarkily thought- oh- they left this umbrella for me to make up for the crappy tip they left, but NEVER would I consider just keeping something that someone left. it goes in 'lost and found'

I know a lot of restaurants have signs that say 'not responsible for lost or stolen items'- but really, that just applies to a situation where you leave something and another restaurant patron takes it.
it's certainly not meant to cover employees' butts and take whatever they want.

I'm with HMC Rich- I'm so bad at keeping up with sunglasses, that just get cheap ones.

I guess we should be thankful that the car keys weren't left behind because obviously some people think it would be an open invitation to keep it, eh? Or better yet, the house keys! :)

I'm from the ZZ Top school of sunglasses. CHEAP SUNGLASSES. That way if they get lost or stolen, who cares!

The waitress was not ethical. Her moral standards are in question. She was caught. She and the restaurant should cut Breanna a deal. The waitress made a huge mistake. Maybe she can learn from it and be an even better person.

In criminal law, theft (also known as stealing or filching) is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. (Wiki law - Shout Out to the other blog!).

As far as I can tell, the waitress was morally wrong and she should pay for replacement pair. She is lucky that the manager didn't fire her.

Breanna is giving her the benefit of the doubt. We will see if the waitress is honorable.

I think Breanna is being very magnanimous. Maybe this thread could have waited for resolution but hindsight is 20/20 with UV protection.

Vincent, keep your dog off my lawn. Thanks.

hi KBear!

1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.

Good thing your the expert on everything, that way we don't have to use pesky things like laws that define items as requiring "intent" for instance. That way I can just say that if I left my bag of dog doo in your lawn and you threw it away, that you stole it from me.
If I ever find a pair of sunglasses I will be sure to just throw them in the trash straight away and be done with it, so I don't have to deal with the wrath of the legal experts I apparently live near.

Sorry, Vincent, you're wrong. You do not have the right to take something just because the owner has misplaced it. That's still theft, and it's still illegal. The waitress is a thief, and she should pay for the sunglasses.

I think the real issue lies somewhere in between. I think that if I left my 180 dollar glasses somewhere and got them back in any way I would count myself lucky. The root of the whole issue lies in the fact that they were left on a table. Now if I had 180 dollar glasses they would never leave my sight, but I have left things behind before myself and probably will again. But when I do I would consider them lost for good and anything I get above that is good luck. I probably wouldn't have been as hard on the waitress, just asked her for them back. Bad things happen when you're careless or forgetful about something, but that doesn't mean that that gives other people the right to maliciously profit off of it.

Like I said earlier, we're in no position to judge this woman until we know whether or not she's going to pay for a new pair. If she does, that means that she's sorry, she knows she's wrong (we already know this) AND she's willing to pay for the damage (though if she's still wearing them they must not be completely ruined.) If she doesn't pay for them it's an expensive lesson about leaving your glasses somewhere and a bad lesson to learn about how many people these days show common courtesy.

Vincent is right that keeping your property when you've left it on theirs is a courtesy, but in this economy I'm surprised that they're not willing to go a little out of their way to keep business coming in. The other issue with this is that it's hard to know when the person claiming the item is the person who lost them. When multiple people claim the glasses (especially if the description of the glasses has been posted somewhere public) that leaves them liable if they give it to the wrong person which can get messy.

It's not a legal issue, it's a matter of common courtesy. Some people don't have it and we encounter it all the time - it's sad but that's why you have to CYA.

Don't get me wrong, Breanna, I'm sorry about what happened to your glasses. But I think the answer is somewhere between the extremes.

I can't believe this is a disscusion thats being had by adults.

The restaurant should have a policy that states all lost and found items must be returned to the lost and found area immediately. If they had and the glasses were scratched up then fine. But they weren't returned and they were on the waitresses head. I feel that the waitress should be made to pay something towards the glasses.

This isn't kindergarden, you leave your things behind, its trash thats it. The fact someone scooped it out of a bus tub, or didn't have a "lost and found" is your problem, and your responsibility. Occasionally you get something back when someone extends the courtesy to hold it for you. Just because someone didn't clean up after your mistakes doesn't make it malice, or theft.
The armchair lawyering on here verges on slander, and is frankly embarrassing that people in our community feel so entitled to accuse people under circumstances they know nothing about.

breanna43: your glasses are scratched because you were careless, stop trying to blame it on someone else.

Breanna, Sounds like you could give Jesse Jones some pointers.. Nice Job !

Breanna,
I'm glad you're assertive in seeing the waitress experiences consequences for her misbehavior. I have a feeling this story will get around the restaurant community, one way or the other.:)

I appreciate all of the opinions....seems like everyone sees things a little differently.

Celeste17 and bikefor1- I got the original glasses in February as a birthday present. So I'd only had them a few months. They were in perfect condition until they were taken. The reason the waitress should pay completely for them is that she ruined them. They aren't wearable. Legally, it's called restitution. And the courts would require her to pay the cost of the replacement, in full.

Vincent- I wasn't trying to defraud the store. In fact, the store manager has been helping me since I went in and bought the new pair, the day after the waitress took them. I told him that I was buying the exact same pair and why, and he encouraged me to return one of them if I got mine back and ended up with two pairs. Assuming, of course, they were in the same condition. That's the problem. Now I can't return the pair she destroyed, only the other ones. And, then I'd be left with the unwearable pair.

Flowerpetal- I don't know if the waitress is still working. I spoke with the dayshift manager in person on Sunday and she said she'd be speaking to the waitress when she got there later that day and would give her the option of paying for my glasses without the GM being notified. I havent heard back. I figure I'll wait till the end of the week, and then follow up.

Thanks for everyone's advice. Even if I don't agree with some of it, I appreciate you taking the energy to share it. I'll keep you posted...

if the glasses were knocked to the floor.. they might get scratched...

Yes she admitted that she left the sunglasses and that it was a dumb thing to do but she went back within 24 hours and they weren't there. The restaurant should have a policy that states all lost and found items must be returned to the lost and found area immediately. If they had and the glasses were scratched up then fine. But they weren't returned and they were on the waitresses head. I feel that the waitress should be made to pay something towards the glasses. I don't feel she should have to pay the whole amount as they weren't brand new. How long has the owner had the glasses? There should be a percentage due to the owner unless she can prove that they were indeed brand new.
I do agree that trying to return the glasses that were scratched up was the wrong thing to do as they weren't sold that way to her and the store can't return them to the manufacturer in that condition so the store would be out the cost of the glasses if they gave her a refund.

This thread is so full of fail I can hardly deal with it all.
if you accepted you lost your glasses what's with the self righteous post about someone who picked your trash up off the table? ( your glasses) if you care so much about 200 glasses, then don't leave them on tables!

also what's with trying to defraud the store with returning the old ones? This whole thread is some warped vindictive judgemental trash.

Just go back and pull a dine and dash. Make sure to order some expensive drinks.

#1 problem with story: The sunglasses were not new when the waitress took them. So why make her cough up $170 for them? Breanna CHOSE to buy a new pair at that price.

#2: The extent of how 'badly scratched up' they could be given (a) the one week timeline; and (b) the fact that the waitress was STILL wearing them, on her head, when they were discovered? Give the girl's vanity some credit for not wearing f'ed up sunglasses at her job.

This story is just like another I read about here:

http://happywaffle.livejournal.com/5890.html

This guy accidentally left his iPhone in a restaurant and an employee of the restaurant picked it up and kept it for himself. But the iPhone owner used the new "Find my iPhone" service to track the phone in real time, caught up with the guy and retrieved his phone.

breanna43: Good for you for getting your glasses back. I think restaurant employees should do whatever they can to be sure their patrons get their lost property back. Employees who simply take lost property for themselves are indeed stealing.

there seem to be a whole lot of judgments going down here on both people and businesses without knowing a whole lot of facts...

that's why we have courts... so we don't have to do the vigilante thing ourselves.

oh.... and so it can't be done to us.

Flowepetal you are right. I would be interested to know b/c if Bamboo did the right thing i would sitll patronize them.

I've read back through these posts. I cannot find where it is that we know that the sticky fingered waitress is still employed there. Did I miss that? Maybe Bamboo did the right thing.

When I pay someone an amount of money, I would assume they are going to look out for my best interest. The fact that she took them implies she didnt care about my best interest. It was theft. It was wrong. Knowing that these type of people are employed by Bamboo makes me not want to patrionize their restaurant.

Munchkin..

i am not a criminal apologist... i advocate personal responsibility...

even when the person responsible is not entirely someone else.

In this case, the waitress took the sunglasses... but if she hadn't... there is still no guarantee that they would have been returned.

They were left on the table and it is only chance and a fair amount of stupidity that pointed to the person who picked them up.

****

wikipedia would tend to agree with the assessment that this is theft..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft

but before you all get too righteous... in this definition theft applies to any abandoned property..

there is no "finders keepers" ... only thieves who take things that don't belong to them.

I detect some criminal apologists in this thread. You libs really frost me sometimes. A crime is a crime, the offender needs to step up and make this right for Breanna43. I for one will not patronize the establishment.

She's damn lucky if she gets out of this for $180 and a little embarrassment.

Really, is this someone you want to hand your credit card to ?

If the sticky-fingered waitress isn't willing to cough up the $180, she deserves whatever other consequences the manager or the police might have in store for her. She already had several chances to do the right thing. If the money is really what's important to you, Breanna, you needn't feel guilty about pursuing it.

I am 110% with JenV. She was completely out of line to take the sunglasses. Even if they had fallen off of the table and a patron did hand them to the waitress it was still the responsibility of the waitress to turn the sunglasses into the lost and found box. typically, there is a policy that after 30 days in the box they go back to the finder. the waitress should have waited for her the 30 days.

I would have her fired and press charges for theft. Today it's sunglasses, tomorrow it might be someone's identity. She knew what she was doing when she took the sunglasses - she's a thief - and I can't believe she's still working there. I never liked Bamboo, and am less likely to visit there based on this tale.

breanna43...

don't get me wrong.. i am not condoning anyone taking anything that doesn't belong to them...

but eyewitnesses to an event are more often conflicting than in agreement... and if you had seen what happened.. you would have walked out with your sunglasses... it is impossible to know what happened after you left the table.

Were they taken as she cleared and you were in the entry putting your skates on? were they pushed aside and left on the table in case you returned? were they knocked to the floor? If so, who knocked them to the floor? did the waitress discover them or another patron?

There is only one person who knows the answers to those questions... and probably no-one who can verify her answers.

I understand completely why you are upset... and i agree that this waitress has clearly violated the finders code... and i would want restitution too.

beyond that, i would be pretty angry that someone would take my expensive sunglasses and treat them so badly that they were scratched beyond repair.

but as you stated in your original post, "I take responsibility for leaving them behind"

You recovered your sunglasses, even if they were damaged... which is more than most victims of loss can claim.

Making it right may not include full payment for your replacement sunglasses.

Sadly... full restitution for our own mistakes seldom happens... even when those mistakes are compounded by others.

As someone who has found many a cool item in her time, I understand where someone might pick something up off the street and keep it.
Playground/street rules are that the finder is the keeper. This however, does not apply in a few situations. A) If the thing has anything on it anywhere denoting who the owner is. B) If it is found somewhere where the owner is likely to return (anywhere that is not a sidewalk or gutter, ie a restaurant or business.)

I love cool little finds, but I will try to find the owner or check with places around that might be able to return it to the owner.

THIS situation - BOLD. And violates street rules of finders keepers and all amendments. Good luck getting her to pay you for them, but I hope it happens. This sounds like a bad situation made in a split second - let's try not to judge her too harshly. She apologized, it may be completely out of character and she has the option of making it right. Keep us updated. It's a rough situation but let's give her a break...

breanna43, you are definitely being the bigger and more charitable person to offer a compromise to this waitress. She's getting off pretty easy with the offer by you, to be reimbursed. I would even think if she doesn't come through, the restaurant manager should offer to pay for them. To leave the impression your things can get stolen by an employee, wouldn't be the outcome I'd want.

Wouldn't an unclaimed item belong to the restaurant anyway? It's not as if they were left at her house. The waitress was fully aware the glasses weren't hers, so any way you look at it, she's stealing from someone.

I feel that she should have to pay for the glasses. I have worked for restaurants and we always put everything in the lost and found. If the person didn't call or come by after three months if it was something simple we could claim it. If it was something more valuable then it was up to the manager to approve us claiming it.

Ok, here's the sequence of events:
During the meal, my glasses were on top of my head. When it was time to leave, I turned my body sideways to re-fasten my rollerblades. I realized my glasses may fall off when I leaned down, so with my right hand, which was closest to the table, I took them off my head and set them on the table. I set them near the isle part of the table, anything else wouldn't have been physically possible. I then stood up, adjusted my pant legs, and out the door we went. As I was doing all this, the waitress was clearing our table.

I really appreciate your optiminism JoB. It's just that, in this case, the glass isn't half full when it comes to that waitress' intentions. She knew what she was doing.

breanna43..

i ask about when she found the sunglasses because more than once i have left my glasses on a table and immediately gone back for them after the table was cleared and they are generally still on the table... over by the salt and pepper and stuff...

the person who cleared the table didn't leave them there for me.. they just hadn't seen them.

if that happened here.. it is as likely that the next person at the table pointed them out to her long after you left or that she found them as she refilled the salt and pepper for the next day's shift.

I agree that the right thing to do even then would have been to put them aside so you could reclaim them.. and i have been that lucky when i left things behind a couple of times.. but i have also returned to find them long gone..

and at that point it doesn't much matter who has them... i left them.

Yes, she must've just "cleared" them with everything else. It was sneeky. And being an employee of that restaurant, she is also representing them. She not only should have given them to me right then because its the right thing to do, but also because she is part of a bigger unit, the Bamboo. I think it's sad that we as a country have become so desensitized to immorality that we put more blame on the person who accidently left their belongings somewhere than a waitress that capitalizes on the opportunity to pocket those belongings. That's pretty cutthroat.

And she should assume the cost of the replacement because I cannot return the old glasses, because she ruined them. And if I return the new ones, Im stuck with the glasses she destroyed. It's legally called restitution, but Im not trying to go that route. Im trying to be reasonable and giving her the option of paying the restitution without getting the theft charge on her record. Seems like a pretty good deal to me....