Microwave Popcorn Ban

A microwave popcorn ban may be implenented in the City of Seattle. Well, rather, there might be a ban on microwave popcorn in buildings used by the City of Seattle:

       Could the next thing be no microwave popcorn?    

    

       "It can be a significant problem in the future," says Seattle Facilities        Director Pedro Vasquez.    

    

       The City Facilities Department has just issued a memo to all City        employees.

"She hit the popcorn button that had an automatic time associated with it and the popcorn still burned," says Vasquez, who says even though it happened at his home, he did not ban popcorn.

SUBJECT: Burnt microwave popcorn.    

    

The Justice Center has been evacuated eight times in three years, forcing the evacuation of more than 400 people.  If the problem continues, it will result in a ban of all microwave popcorn.

    

       How has it happened so many times?    

    

       "I really don't know, I can't answer that question for you," says        Yolande Williams, City Court Administrator.    

    

The biggest offenders are at the Justice Center, but overheated popcorn has also forced evacuations at the Municipal Tower.

    

Popcorn is not the easiest thing to cook.  Who knows if it's really two, two-and-a-half or three minutes?  An unsupervised bag can destroy productivity for all your co-workers.    

    

       But just the mention of a possible ban at city offices gets a number of        responses.    

    

"Perhaps what would happen is there'd be an underground market for microwave popcorn, people would sneak the microwaves into their offices, they'd do illicit popping," says Frank Video, a staff member for the Seattle City Council.

    

       Is it possible that if popcorn is outlawed, only the outlaws will have        popcorn?    

    

       "You know, it's not something that we have talked about in that much        detail yet," says Vasquez.    

    

       A spokesman for Mayor Greg Nickels says the Mayor does not eat popcorn.    

    

       The City just wants employees to follow this simple rule: Listen to the        pop to know when to stop.    

    

       The Facilities director admits even his wife has burned a bag or two.

    

Personally, I'd say there is a better solution. Those employees who are too dumb to successfully microwave popcorn should be fired, clearly, they're too dumb to be sucking down the taxpayers's money anyway.

Harsh but fair I think.