When you find a quarter in the street you don't have a good chance (any chance really) of being able to get it back to the owner. But in a case like this with the cues you know you have an extremely good chance to being able to get it back to the owner. You know 100% the owner is going to be checking with tournament personnel, and especially the casino lost and found to see if his cue was returned.
You are just trying to find a way to justify keeping something that doesn't belong to you, but that you could get back to the owner if you wanted to, plain and simple..
If you put an ad in the paper to find the quarters owner, it would be the same. I don't need to justify keeping it, because I don't think he should have. The problem I have is with the THIEF label, it's erroneous and quite frankly if I was hoppy I would be pissed. BTW I found a phone, I did not bring it to the stadium I found it at, because the lost and found is a VOID, I took it and called some people on the phone's contact list and got the phone back to the owner. Now had he or his friends called me a thief, I would have put that phone in a ziplock and beat it with a hammer. Then gave it back with a big screw you.
But if you really think there is a chance that they were just abandoned (yeah right, nobody would really think that), well then what you would do is when you turn it in to lost and found, you leave your contact information so that if it is not claimed in X number of days you get it back. Most places do that. And if their policy is that they keep unclaimed merchandise, and you aren't willing to accept that, then you give lost and found your contact info and let them know about what you found and explain that you will be holding onto the items but that if someone comes looking for it to give them your contact info because you would like to return it...
First off, I saw Joe Frady break a Szamboti in anger, and give the butt to the houseman, I have seen people give this game up on the spot. So is it possible, absolutely. Again, he found something on the ground, and whether you agree or not, the guy was not a thief. To steal requires deliberate action to take something that is not yours. This guy FOUND something, he did not take it. BTW the title of the original thread should have been LOST cues at the Derby.
The difference to me, is whether or not you have a good chance of getting it back to its rightful owner. If you don't have any chance of getting it back to the rightful owner, then it is just an item you found and you keep it because there is nothing you can do. But if you have a chance of getting it back to the rightful owner, especially if it is a pretty decent chance, but you refuse to make any effort to do that, then it is in fact theft, at least in my book. It really is no different than when the guy in line in front of you at the grocery store drops a $20 bill and you reach down and take it before he notices..
He made no effort to return it when he found it, by turning it in to lost and found, where it had by far the best chance of being reunited with its owner. He only "made the effort to return it" after he found out there was video of him taking it. I hardly call that "doing the right thing". More like damage control now that you think there is a chance that you can be identified.
There was no video of him taking it, there was a video of him FINDING it. That is the difference. If he had stolen it like that fat jacka$$ tried to do with Omega, I'd say string him up.
But now what this gentleman has, is someone googles his name, and there is a thread calling him a thief for FINDING something... good job.
Just for a little dictionary play... finding is not synonymous with stealing, or taking. Last I looked, words had definitions.
JV
