Thieves dip into farmers' avocado profits

The Orange County Register ^ | 01/26/04 | Patricia Leigh Brown

[socal_parrot]

As the Super Bowl nears, 'guac cops' battle a surge in avocado stealing in San Diego and Ventura counties.

VALLEY CENTER

[socal_parrot]

$43.5 million worth of cilantro-laced party dip

Holy Guacamole!

[socal_parrot]

Oops...just saw it was originally from the NYT. Could you excerpt this please?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Guacamole Rustlers

[Dog Gone]

No need to excerpt NY Times articles.

[socal_parrot]

I DID not know that...


Thanks.

[TheBattman]

Of course, the property owners are not allowed to own firearms, so they can't just camp out and shoot the darned theives.

[coloradan]

No Blood for Guacamole!

[Timm]

Farmers lose their shirt because some San Diegans don't want to pay a lousy $2 for guacamole. Sheesh.

[socal_parrot]

Steal an avacado, go to prison.

[Chewbacca]

Can you shoot at avacado rustlers like you can at cattle rustlers?

Wait up at night and put a bullet through their radiator.

[socal_parrot]

I would think they are stolen in bulk and then sold at farmer's markets, swap meets, etc.

[Admin Moderator]

NY Times isn't part of the settlement.

[socal_parrot]

Thanks, sorry to bother you.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[Wisconsin]

I have never been able to regard an avocado quite the same way I used to since learning that the name derives from the South American corrupted Spanish for "testicle".

[cyborg]

That's real?

[suzyq5558]

He He and i thought the shroom thieves here in the PNW were suuuuch a problem......

[dennisw]

File under:
Doing the crimes Ameircans are too lazy and unwilling to do.

[StolarStorm]

I wonder how many of the thieves are illegal aliens.

[Who dat?]

The first time I read about it was probably 15 years ago.

I don’t know anything about avocados but my understanding (other than being expensive) is that you have to know what you’re doing or they’re not any good.

Certain types of avocados (all?) you don’t pick when they’re ripe – you have a window as to how many days have passed since they started growing and pick them while they’re still green. Otherwise they’re too unripe or end up overripe, and not worth anything.

It always sounded like an inside job to me but you could probably figure things out if you knew what was going on and just kept an eye out…

They’ve done the same type of thing here at nurseries. They’ll break in at night and steal five ornamental trees valued at $12,000 or something silly. Or, better yet, they’ll cruise the neighborhood and dig up recently-planted plants and try to sell them off to other jobs. I guess it makes sense though… whatever people will pay money for is something you’d steal.