Chicago Bank Bans Hands-In-Pockets and Heavy Coats
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Steve Verdon | Thursday, August 3, 2006 |
Keeping your hands in your pockets or wearing heavy coats have been banned inside the five branches of the Second National Bank in the Chicago area, to enhance security.
Even keeping your hands in your pockets or wearing a heavy coat in the bank’s lobby may result in the person being asked to leave the premises.
“We ban hands in the pockets and heavy coats in the lobby because you don’t know what people are doing,” Ralph Boster, a senior vice president, told the Chicago Tribune. Purses backpacks and briefcases are also a worry.
Boster said there have been holdups in which bandits had their hands in their pockets then produced a gun. Even worse is when a person is wearing a heavy coat on pulls out a shot gun. Frequently these people have backpacks or purse like bags they use to cary the money out of the bank.
“You’re trying to stop this kind of thing,” he says.
Banks in Mexico City banned hands in pockets in may in May and Citizens First Financial Bank of Munster, Ind., asks customers to hang up their heavy coats on a coat rack in the lobby.
West Suburban Bank, based in Lombard, Ill., barred customers wearing hats in January but has not moved to silence cell phones.
Okay, no, not hands in the pockets nor heavy coats, but cell phones. Chicago is continuing its fine tradition of banning just about anything and everything. Note, I didn’t actually make up the stuff about West Suburban Bank barring customers with hats.
I’m waiting for the day when you have to go into the bank naked holding your deposit slip between your butt cheeks.
About the Author: Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research.
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All the more reason to bank by mail or online with USAA...
It must be nice to have such a secure market position that you can treat your customers like criminals.
If this bank were smart they'd get the federal government to do the rule-making and -enforcing, like at the airport.
If only there were some kind of technology that would allow a bank to scan every individual for a gun on their person as they walk into the bank. Heck, while we're in fantasy land, why not scan for large knives too? Or any metal object of significant size? Some kind of detector of metals.
If only...
"I’m waiting for the day when you have to go into the bank naked holding your deposit slip between your butt cheeks."
Steve, don't hold your breath and if you think the banks don't like customers with their hands in their pockets, see what they do about naked jaybirds with streak marks on their deposit slips. Just try your innovative idea and then let us know if you end up in the happy farm or jail.
Is this bank so greedy that it fears its customers ?
A good bank "NOT" to do business with.
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