Kicking the California Can All the Way to Maine

"“Seinfeld’’ Character Cited in Bill to Curb Can Smuggling" Bloomberg News, April 20, 2012

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A lawmaker seeking to curb smuggling of bottles and cans into California for cash redemption is invoking Newman and Kramer from the “Seinfeld’’ television show - and a scam they hatch that leads to a car chase and a damaged mail truck.   

Laws are being based on an indoctrinating and inculcating 1990s situation comedy? America, what the hell has happened to you?

Assemblyman Richard Gordon, a Democrat from Menlo Park, is proposing a bill that would require anyone who imports bulk amounts of recyclable containers into California to report where they came from.

An analysis of the bill details a pair of 1996 episodes of Seinfeld in which characters Cosmo Kramer and Newman, a postman, devise a plan to smuggle a mail truck full of bottles and cans from New York to Michigan and redeem them for 10 cents per container, versus 5 cents in New York.

Such plans aren’t merely fiction. In Maine last year, three people were indicted for allegedly cashing in 100,000 out-of- state bottles and cans worth more than $10,000. The state offers 5-cent refunds on most containers....  

Who cares?  Shouldn't they just be happy we the earth is being saved on Earth Day? 

States have nothing better to do than ferret out can crimes while the real frauds of foreclosure and the mortgage-backed securities they bought?

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More from Maine:

Senate power struggle fuels Maine race

Stake in Maine media company bought by US representative's spouse


Maine gay marriage campaign launched

“What is it about democracy that these groups don’t understand?’’

Maine pageant celebrates the mustache

Don't they mean beard? 

Maine man gets 8-year sentence in fatal drunken driving crash

Boston's 'bike czar' leaving to take job in Maine

Either way you are taking your life in your hands.