That surprises me because in this area they are offering to buy groceries for others at half price to get the cash. I don’t think they would do that if they can just buy a candy bar or something and get the change, they would come out a lot better that way than half price.
But the story in the OP just makes me laugh. It is why our government is going down from a thousand cuts. This is just one of them.
Think of our governments budget as a bucket that needs to hold water. This sort of thing is like a pin-hole in the bucket. That's ok because water is being poured in at a pretty strong rate. Now add the other entitlements, the pork programs, the bail outs.
This is what our bucket now looks like, and why we are not long for this world: