Foreign
Officials Evicted by Grocer
Bulgarian
Group Mistaken for Roaming Band of
Thieves
ST. Anthony, Minn.
(AP) - A delegation of official visitors from Bulgaria
was ordered out of a grocery store in this Minneapolis
suburb on Friday when the store's owner, worried about
reports of "gypsy-looking" shoplifters, mistook the group
for gypsies.
The Bulgarians --five
members of Parliament and several journalists-- were
visiting the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as part of a
national tour sponsored by the United States Information
Agency. They were forced to leave the store, the Apache
New Market, over the protests of two State Department
interpreters who were escorting them.
"They just wanted to
see what a neighborhood shopping center was like", said
Dana Penoff, one of the interpreters. "Almost immediately
after we walked in we heard this announcement that there
was a suspicious group, that every shopper should be on
alert. It turned out that everyone of us was being
followed and watched."
Ms. Penoff said she
would talk to state officials about filing a human-rights
complaint. She said that she had tried to tell the
store's owner and manager, Vern Berggaren, that the
Bulgarians were guest of the United States, but he
replied: "Put everything down and leave. We don't want
your kind of people in this store."
Reports of
Roving Shoplifters
Elena Poptodorova, a
member of the delegation, said she told Mr. Berggren: "I
am a member of Parliament. I have my credential with me.
So would you please explain why you are behaving like
that to me?"
In a broadcast
interview later, Mr. Berggren said he was sorry for the
misunderstanding but had been concerned after hearing
reports that bands of roving shoplifters struck stores in
Minnesota and Wisconsin a few days ago.
Law-enforcement
officials said last week that the shoplifters --men,
women, and children-- spoke a foreign language and
operated by distracting store clerks while others in the
band stole. In their description of the shoplifters, the
officials used the term "gypsies".
"The description was
either Eastern or gypsy-looking-type people", Mr.
Berggren said, "And when they spoke, they spoke with a
foreign accent". Referring to the Bulgarian visitors, he
said, "They fit the description."
But Ms. Penoff said
that such a mistake was incredible. "They are people who
are very educated and very intelligent.", she said.
"These people are well dressed and well
behaved."
"I'm embarrassed as an
American", she added. "To be in my own country and have
one of my own countrymen behave like this is
incredible".
