Return Your Books, Son.
Apparently, the Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach has been flexing its legal muscle:
Some people in Myrtle Beach owe money to Chapin Memorial Library, the city’s only library. In some instances it has reached to a point where police have to serve warrants.
The warrants are referred to as courtesy warrants according to the City of Myrtle Beach Police department but the problem deals, in great part, to a lack of courtesy.
Police said people check out books and videos and despite written requests from the library to return them, the patron ignore those requests.
“If they are not returned then it’s considered a larceny by South Carolina law and it is treated as such,” said library director Briget Livingston, “It’s not for someone who owes us a dollar, this is for someone who as not returned many many materials at least $50 worth.”[full article]
Courtesy warrant? It’s probably a courtesy they send the cops and not this guy.
I wonder if this is good press for libraries where many are struggling to justify themselves in increasingly stringent times? Are issuing warrants like this an unnecessarily visible action? Could this pressure on delinquent users be done better, so that it stays off the oddball news sections.