“I’ll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.” And, I want to sip it as I get to first base with my favorite TSA agent. It’s funny how the rules can be stretched for big business. That’s right, check out the picture below. I captured it in the Puerto Vallarta airport on a recent trip to Mexico. I wonder how many grande Pike Place Roasts Starbucks offered up for this preferential treatment.
Perhaps it’s an airport wide policy – and if so, leave it to those marketing geniuses at Starbucks for profiting from it so nicely. None of the other food and beverage establishments at the airport even mentioned a peep about this.
My TSA rants are becoming all too common, but this all brings about another interesting question. Doesn’t the weakest link theorem apply to our national security? In other words, if it’s safe for me to clear security and then fly from Puerto Vallarta to San Francisco with a liquid-filled Venti-sized container that is about 7x the size of the largest allowable toiletry, then why is it not OK for me to do the same from SFO to ORD? Perhaps bad people don’t vacation in Puerto Vallarta. Or, perhaps Ziploc had a larger budget to lobby Homeland Security than Starbucks did.
By the way, I also didn’t have to take off my shoes when going through security. Perhaps Nike should throw up a sign that says “Wear your Nikes while you score with a TSA agent!”
Tony D'Astolfo is vice president of worldwide sales for Rearden Commerce. These comments are republished with permission from his Carrying On blog
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