[Originally published in Synapse on April 1, 1993.]
An April Fool’s tale. For countless years now, Girl Scout cookies have been a part of the American landscape. Children in uniform make their way door to door, selling sweets which are clearly overpriced and yet seemingly irresistible.
This year, however, the sweet tradition turned sour on March 18 when two Girl Scouts and their chaperones were arrested outside UCSF’s Millberry Union.
The “Parnassus Four” were charged with violating San Francisco’s new aggressive panhandling law, ratified by voters in the November elections. Millberry Union director Al Minvielle said the girls “just went too far” in pushing the cookies on passers-by.
According to one Moffitt Hospital registration worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “They just wouldn’t leave me alone; I’d already bought three boxes, but still, every day they were after me. ‘Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir.’ It got to where I wouldn’t Ieave the building so that I wouldn’t have to face them.”
Police Chief Ron Nelson said that complaints against the vendors were few at first. “Everyone seemed afraid to report these cute little girls.”
Then the complaints began to escalate.
“At first I was mostly concerned for the kids,” said Nelson. “I thought somebody might just snap at a girl tugging at his coattails and shove her away. Parnassus can be pretty tough, you know.”
He assigned additional officers to walk the beat. As tensions built during final exams, students were less tolerant of the solicitations.
“I don’t have a lot of money anyway,” said first-year medical student X, “and I certainly need free access between academic buildings.”
The girls, meanwhile, sensing a drop off in sales after over two weeks of work, became more persistent. One bespectacled Brownie with Girl Scout’s badges was seen to follow a harried student from curbside all the way through the door of the Medical Sciences building.
Police spokesperson Chris Yee told Synapse that the showdown didn’t surprise her.
“This year has been especially hard, with the economy the way it is. Girls can no longer count on their parents to buy out their cookie quota, and customers are more protective of their pocketbooks. All over the city we’ve been seeing this sort of thing, although UCSF was the first to press charges.”
On the afternoon of March 18, two plainclothes officers staked out in front of the “Do UC Us” Roach Coach were approached by smiling juveniles who allegedly asked them to buy cookies. The officers declined.
As they were leaving the area several minutes later, they received a second request from the girls. At this point they identified themselves and read the shocked Scouts their Miranda rights. Then the adults with them came forward and were arrested as accomplices and instigators. Their names have been withheld to protect the girls.
The Girl Scouts of America have issued a statement claiming that their members did nothing wrong and that the public should bear in mind that scouting means a lot more than cookie sales and summer camp.
Reaction to the arrest has been varied on campus. Some believe that the girls have been mere pawns in a larger game involving the New Alliance Party and H. Ross Perot’s United We Stand, America.
At the other extreme is Minvielle, who maintains, “The little nippers belong in jail!”
The prevailing view may have been stated by a pediatrician who told Synapse, “I feel badly for the kids, but you can only take so much.”
The Union of Professional Signature Collectors — which has several thousand members in San Francisco — has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the girls, who are currently in a rehabilitation facility.
Addendum from the April 8, 1993, issue of Synapse:
It was a Joke
The April 1 Synapse story, “Girls Scouts Arrested Outside Millberry Union,” was an April Fool's joke. Our apologies to those who were misled by the realistic tone. It seemed funny at the time...
