“The Winston Salem Transit Authority posted this memo in their depressing, dingy, bus depot,” reports Bill in North Carolina. (The WSTA‘s new motto: “Kick ’em while they’re down!)
related: Your knees are pressing into my repressed rage
Your new favorite band: Larceny of Electric Power
April 2nd, 2012 · 51 comments
FILED UNDER: cell phone · North Carolina · public transit · warning · Winston-Salem · WTF?
51 responses so far ↓
#1
H for Toy
So be sure to hide it well.
Apr 2, 2012 at 10:21 pm rating: 29
#2
Nick
Laptops are totally ok, though.
Apr 2, 2012 at 10:24 pm rating: 15
#3
Who passed out the Haterade?
Larceny of Electric Power… weren’t they a cover band for AC/DC?
Apr 2, 2012 at 10:28 pm rating: 71
#4
George P
The amount of electricity needed to charge a cell phone could run into the fractions of a cent.
Apr 2, 2012 at 10:32 pm rating: 72
#5
Samsei
My parents lived in Winston-Salem for a while in the ’90s. It used to be very much a tobacco town, though a lot of the companies have since moved away. I took the bus a few times, and at that point, about ’92 or ’93, you could still smoke _on the bus_, though you had to sit at the back. It was about as pleasant as you might imagine.
Apr 2, 2012 at 10:35 pm rating: 10
#6
bees
I saw them open for Gravity Fraud in ’07. Woooo!
Apr 2, 2012 at 11:03 pm rating: 35
#7
infanttyrone
Come on folks….more security people needed to surveil ‘passengers’ and more security people needed to make sure the brash banned bastards don’t re-invade WSTA premises…stop dumping on the job creators, OK ?
Larceny of Electric Power was a side project of Charlie Allen,
front man of Pacific Gas & Electric. Don’t just make stuff up.
Apr 3, 2012 at 12:14 am rating: 8
#8
geekgirl
Or you know, larcenyofelectricpower dot tumbler dot com
Apr 3, 2012 at 12:56 am rating: 3
#9
April
Is that really a thing? I’m confused since I see people plugging their cellphones and laptops and such in outlets in public all the time! And while not in the same state, I’m also American and from a nearby state…
Apr 3, 2012 at 1:43 am rating: 5
#10
Mike Rophone
I sort of imagine that the band is just called Electric Power, while Larceny is the stage name of their front man. “Hi, this is Larceny of Electric Power, and you’re listening to 95.7 The Edge, home of real rock n’ roll”.
Apr 3, 2012 at 2:45 am rating: 39
#11
Grant
You too will be charged.
Apr 3, 2012 at 5:55 am rating: 20
#12
Nope
Yeah I’m sure 2-3 people charging their cell phones really racks up the bills! At least we can still plug our heavy duty appliances in at this bus depot. I’ll be bringing my kitchen down there along with my car.
Apr 3, 2012 at 7:11 am rating: 15
#13
Elmo
The Greyhound bus terminal in Pittsburgh provides charging stations so people CAN charge their phones, etc. It seems like a courteous thing to do considering that people taking longish bus trips often have time to kill between legs on a journey and because mobile phones are really useful when traveling — especially when you are using a prepaid budget system and not a high-end battery-sucking iDon’tGiveARip.
Apr 3, 2012 at 8:43 am rating: 17
#14
JC
How stupid. i’ve never ever seen anyone else using the outlets…so what are they there for? lol
Apr 3, 2012 at 8:55 am rating: 3
#15
Adriana
This is just another way of saying “okay, it’s not REAL larceny ’cause that’s illegal, but we do have the authority to ban you from a place you didn’t really want to be at in the first place and make you feel bad about it, so… take that.”
Apr 3, 2012 at 10:00 am rating: 19
#16
yolanda
It’s just cheap and petty is what it is. They should be providing convenient charging stations and a wifi hot spot at a place like this, not threatening to charge you with larceny.
Apr 3, 2012 at 10:21 am rating: 14
#17
QBALL
I use my woodburning cell phone in states where using .0000002 cents worth of electricity is forbotten
Apr 3, 2012 at 10:33 am rating: 37
#18
Ashley
That’s not larceny, because they’re not depriving the owner of electricity. They still have plenty….
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:20 am rating: 5
#19
Noelegy
The phrase “Larceny of Electric Power” has a very Monty Pythonesque ring to it.
Apr 3, 2012 at 12:00 pm rating: 17
#20
unsatisfied
c’mon. how can this even be a thing? you know no one who goes to a bus station actually HAS a cell phone.
Apr 3, 2012 at 12:07 pm rating: 4
#21
Quite Contrary
I’m sure it required more electricity to power the computer and printer required to produce this sign. Unless, of course, they used rub-on letters guided by the light from the sun or flickering candles. Asshats.
Apr 3, 2012 at 1:26 pm rating: 16
#22
Jami
To put another spin on it – I work in a public library where people often plug their cellphones in to charge them and walk away, leaving them there while they do other things. Ever since 9/11 people have freaked out seeing those charging cells sitting by themselves, thinking they were bombs. (Yes, I’m serious.)
So while they might have put the sign up claiming that people were “stealing eletricity” it’s really because the emloyees were sick and tired of paranoid people who think every lone cellphone is really an Al Queda bomb.
Apr 3, 2012 at 3:16 pm rating: 18
#23
havingfitz
My job is so paranoid that someone might steal their precious electricity that if they find you with something plugged in they will cut the cord in half. Those of us who have been here a while know the risks, but it’s always amusing to watch new folks stare in horror at the pieces of their charger.
Apr 3, 2012 at 5:04 pm rating: 9
#24
jugstopper
I am pretty sure that Larceny of Electric Power was a spinoff of ELO (The Electric Light Orchestra.)
Apr 4, 2012 at 8:09 pm rating: 4
#25
SalemGirl
lol! I saw that the other day and I couldn’t even believe it. Way to go WSTA.
Apr 5, 2012 at 8:37 am rating: 0
#26
Zak
On the London Underground, they use a socket design that’s slightly different to the UK standard to prevent people plugging devices in. The cleaning staff use plugs on their machines that fit the ‘Walsall Gauge 13 A’ sockets.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS_1363
Apr 6, 2012 at 5:46 am rating: 5
#27
Mike
This happened to me. Some Jackass waiter in a NJ diner wouldn’t let me plug in my computer at a diner while actually trying to eat something. This was back in 2000 before everyone had a laptop. I ended up plugging it in anyway and he got mad at me. I am not sure what the hell his deal was, you would think a waiter would understand a guy having to work for a living. It was also on my 22 birthday. Talk about being a crappy day. I don’t really remember the name of the diner, but if i did, i sure as hell would have given them a bad review (if they had that sort of thing back then)
Apr 7, 2012 at 2:33 am rating: 1
#28
Bee
I lived in Osaka for a while, and walked through a major transit centre’s big open courtyard on my way to work. The courtyard was full of powerpoints, and I lost count of the number of times I’d see girls crouched beside the powerpoints with their hair straighteners plugged in, doing their hair. I don’t ever recall any of them being charged with larceny of electric power…
Apr 10, 2012 at 7:32 pm rating: 2
#29
kwame
Hi all. By sheer coincidence, I also discussed the sign with my undergraduate students. One of the students discovered this website and passed it along to me. About a month ago, I complained about this sign to the WSTA manager. Roughly 3 weeks later they changed the signs. You can have a look at the new sign here: http://www.evernote.com/shard/s108/sh/6fc80aa2-443c-46eb-befe-fa81d8cd0df8/9df100d48d99991b3ad75dda22b6a43c
Apr 11, 2012 at 12:03 pm rating: 3
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