Apparently, Retrieving A Stolen Sandwich From A Trash Can Is Stealing At Starbucks

From The Slog blog in The Stranger in Seattle, we have news of a guy who was fired from a Starbucks for stealing.

This guy says he retrieved a discarded sandwich from
the trash at Starbucks. A firing offense?  

Nope, he wasn't sampling all the coffees or anything like that. Store employees had thrown out some wrapped sandwiches which had passed their sell-by date.

The employee, Coulson Loptmann, said he was starving, so he retrieved the sandwich since nobody else wanted it.

But that was stealing, according to The Slog, and Loptmann was fired. 

Yes, yes, I suppose Starbucks was looking for an excuse to Loptmann and just picked the stupidest one. But he says he wasn't on the boss's shit list until this happened.

Loptmann said he's on food stamps since he couldn't get enough hours to work full time at Starbucks, and the constantly shifting schedule made it hard to obtain a second job to make ends meet.

Unless they hated this guy, don't you think firing a guy for stealing a stale sandwich from the garbage can is a bit harsh?

I can only think of a few reasons why they did this:

1. The aforementioned theory the boss just hates this guy.
2. The boss is a jerk, and wanted to demonstrate who is in charge, so he put the hammer down on Loptmann just for sport and an example.
3. Starbucks didn't want the negative publicity about low wages and low hours, so they fired this guy to shut all the employees up who were tempted to do something like this because they have no money. If this is the case, the plan backfired.
4. Starbucks doesn't want employees getting sick on discarded food, as a spokesman for the company said. But Loptmann said nobody mentioned his health. They just yelled at him for stealing.
5. Outfits like Starbucks are hoarders, and they don't want anybody taking anything, including their garbage.
6. Whoever is in charge of the rules wants to demonstrate that even if you're poor or broke, you have no business taking something for free. Even if nobody wants that item.
7.. Somebody hid a valuable gold coin in the discarded sandwich, Loptmann knew it and wanted to make a killing.

Vote for your favorite theory!