Professional bakers don’t shop the way the rest of us do. When they want to make a delicious treat, they’d rather buy things like flour, sugar, chocolate, and other ingredients in bulk to satisfy consumer demand for desserts. In Rhode Island, bakers are trying to get lawmakers to make the bulk buying experience possible for another ingredient they use a lot of: wine. [More]
rhode island
Rhode Island Yanks Tourism Video Because Reykjavik Is Not Within State’s Borders
By 3.30.16
When you’re trying to get people visit your state and see all its wonderful sights, a tourism video can be just the thing to lure travelers. But if that video contains footage of an entirely different locale, say, one that’s out of the country, it’s not going to be a very effective tool for boosting tourism. Rhode Island officials know how that feels now, after they accidentally included stock footage of Reykjavik, Iceland in a video for their home state. [More]
Applebee’s Will Pay Cook With Autism For All 480 Hours That Family Claims
By 10.26.15
Last week, the family of a Rhode Island man with autism who worked part-time for a local Applebee’s for a year without being paid went public about his predicament. Within only a few days, Applebee’s promised to pay the man first for the 166 hours recorded in their system, then for all 480 hours that his family claimed he had worked. [More]
Applebee’s Forgot To Pay Prep Cook With Autism For A Whole Year
By 10.23.15
How can someone work part-time for a national chain restaurant for the better part of a year and not receive any pay? What happened to a young adult in Rhode Island was a unique situation where the employee worked in an unpaid training program through a state-funded nonprofit, then was supposed to be moved onto the payroll. Only he never was. [More]
Lawyer Insists He’s Innocent Of Death Profiteering And Identity Theft, Wants New Trial
By 3.4.13 — Updated: 12.17.13
Hey, remember the Rhode Island lawyer who was charged with wire fraud and identity theft for using strangers’ deaths as an investment vehicle? As his sentencing date approaches, he’s filed papers to rescind his guilty plea and request a new trial. His guilty plea came with a maximum sentence of ten years in prison, but he maintains his innocence. [More]
2nd Man Dies From Eating Salmonella Contaminated Pastries
By 4.11.11
A second man has died after eating pastries from the DeFusco’s bakery in Rhode Island, the result of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened 66 and hospitalized 23, reports The Providence Journal. [More]
A-Hole Identity Thieves Send Thank You Flowers To Victim
By 4.4.11
It’s bad enough when someone finds a way to swipe your personal info to use for their own illegal purposes. But it’s a special kind of jackass that has the temerity to send you a “Thank You” note after stealing your funds. [More]
IRS Extends Tax Deadline To May 11 For Victims Of Flood
By 4.1.10
With torrential rains causing massive flooding in Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts, the IRS has decided to make victims’ lives a little less stressful by moving the due date for filing their federal income tax returns. [More]
Holy Crap, This Mall Is Underwater
By 3.31.10
It’s been raining quite a bit on the east coast and especially, it seems, in Rhode Island, where the state’s second largest mall is under 2′ of water. [More]
Rhode Island High School Fires All 88 Teachers
By 2.24.10
Do you teach at Central Falls High? Not for long. You’ve all been fired. The school is one of the lowest performing in the state and apparently the teachers couldn’t come to an agreement about how much they should be paid to do something about it. [More]
How Do You Get A Neighbor To Stop Parking In Front Of Your House?
By 2.9.10
Amy’s neighbors won’t stop parking in front of her house. They say that parking in front of their own house “spoils their view.” Problem is, they live on the corner and there’s shrubs so the cars also spoil Amy and her husband’s view of oncoming traffic when they pull out. They’ve tried various tactics ranging from the passive aggressive to accidentally knocking the neighbor’s bumper off, but they still plop their cars park in front of Amy’s abode. Dear readers, what can she do to get them to stop? [More]
Subway Worker Wonders Why You Would Eat Their "Disgusting" Food
By 7.26.09
John visited his local Rhode Island Subway every weekday for the past two months to enjoy what he thought was a healthy lunch. That all came to end after he overheard a Subway worker say to her colleague: “I don’t know how anybody could eat this stuff everyday. It’s disgusting and it will make you fat.”
Cat Arrives Frozen After Plane Ride
By 3.4.09
Breeder ships rare pregnant cat via airline. It arrives frozen and dead. According to the airline’s vet, the cat died from uterine toxicity from multiple dead kittens. Because the baggage handlers thawed, froze, and thawed the cat again, there’s no way for the breeder to prove that the cat died from being frozen. The airline has offered to refund the breeder’s ticket, but admits no culpability in the cat’s death.
Store Owner Demands Spanish-Speaking Customers Show Social Security Cards
By 3.13.08
David C. Richardson, the owner of Rhode Island Refrigeration in Providence, Rhode Island, overheard two customers speaking Spanish to each other, so he asked them to produce proof of citizenship. According to them, he then threatened to call Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and make a citizen’s arrest, although Richardson denies he picked up the phone, but not that he made the threats. In fact, he says he’s done this “fifteen or twenty times” in the past and refuses to do business with those who won’t show their Social Security cards.
By 1.4.08
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New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut are preparing legislation similar to New York State’s airline passenger’s bill of rights. [San Francisco Chronicle via ConsumerWorldBlog]
Harder To Sell Used CDs Than It Is To Get A Driver's License?
By 5.8.07
…you’ll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don’t want to pay a $10,000 bond for the “right” to treat their customers like criminals. …
How The Stop & Shop Thieves Stole Credit Card Info From Right Under The Cashier's Nose
By 3.9.07
In the Stop & Shop case, police say that late at night — after shopping crowds had thinned and the staff was whittled to a skeletal crew — four young men entered several stores in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, distracted employees and replaced several card-swiping machines with devices that looked similar. The thieves’ systems, however, housed mini circuit boards that recorded customers’ data and PINs.
Arrests Made In Stop and Shop Data Theft
By 3.1.07
Police in Rhode Island have arrested four people in connection with a recent security breach at Stop & Shop Supermarket Cos.
