Clerk Gets Fired After Refusing To Sell Cigarettes To Welfare Recipient

A New Hampshire clerk who refused to sell cigarettes to a welfare recipient and was fired now finds that she is a cause celebre to those who are outraged that it is legal to use the taxpayer-funded benefit to purchase tobacco products, alcohol and similar non-essential items.

Jackie Whiton, 65, lost her job as a clerk at a Big Apple convenience store in Peterborough late last month after refusing to accept an Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT, card as payment for the smokes. "He was very capable of working," she said of the customer. "So I told him to get a J-O-B."