3rd Market Finds Marked Juice Carton

An orange juice carton that had been tampered with was found on a west San Fernando Valley supermarket shelf in the third such incident in as many days, Los Angeles police said Wednesday.

In the cases this week, 64-ounce cartons of orange juice were found with notes indicating their contents may have been contaminated. The notes were attached to the cartons with needles from hypodermic syringes, police said.

The juice in all three cartons is being tested by police for possible contamination, but results were incomplete Wednesday. There have been no reports of anyone being poisoned by drinking from a contaminated carton of juice, police said.

The latest tampering incident was reported to police Wednesday after a carton of Citrus Hill orange juice was found on a Hughes Market shelf in the 22300 block of Sherman Way in Canoga Park.

The two other cartons contained Minute Maid orange juice. One was found Tuesday at an Alpha Beta store in the 6200 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills, and the other was found Monday at a Vons supermarket in the 23300 block of Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills.

“The notes are similar. We suspect it is the same person,” said Lt. Lee Lorenze. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any clues to who that is.”

Police have refused to divulge what was said in the notes, although a spokesman for Alpha Beta said the note found in that store said “Unsafe Packaging.”

Vons and Alpha Beta removed all refrigerated Minute Maid juice products from the stores after the tampering was discovered, spokesmen said. Vons has since put a new shipment of juice on its shelves, officials said.

Shelves Cleared

Employees at the Hughes Market in Canoga Park removed all refrigerated juice products from the store’s shelves after the tampered carton was found about 8:15 a.m. Wednesday.

Officials from all three food-store chains reported that security in their Valley stores, particularly near juice cases, has been increased.

“It is an all-employee alert in our stores,” said Mary McAboy, a spokeswoman for Vons.

Fred Cook, a spokesman for Hughes Market, said the carton was found in that store not long after it had been tampered with.

“Ever since the incident at Vons, our employees have been very aware of it,” Cook said. “We have been on guard and watching for this. One of our employees spotted the carton and took it off the shelf while it was still cold.”

Unusual Placement

But no employee saw who had tampered with the carton, he said. In each of the three incidents, the juice carton was found on a non-refrigerated shelf where juice products normally are not displayed, police said.

Because different food stores and brands of orange juice were tampered with, police said they have not been able to pinpoint a motive. Police said they had received no calls from anyone claiming responsibility for the tampering. It is a crime to tamper with products regardless of whether they turn out to be contaminated.

Police urged consumers to carefully inspect cartons of juice purchased from the stores where the tampering incidents have taken place and to notify authorities if they find indications of tampering.