This egging business is no laughing matter, and some needed controls should be put in place before the next Homecoming:
1. While it is clearly unconstitutional and a violation of teen rights to refuse to sell eggs to teenagers (as the School Board suggested), local stores can and should at least agree not to sell "Jumbo" sized eggs to teenagers for two weeks before and after Homecoming .
2. If the merchants persist in their position that they will continue to sell eggs, and since kids do buy many cartons of eggs during this period, teenagers should be encouraged to buy only "free range" eggs (sometimes called “cage free” eggs), since this segment of the egg producing industry is very kind to the chickens, needs more business, and deserves our support. Victims also understand the virtue in this. As one girl observed, “I was hit by three eggs, but at least they were free range ones.”
3. Members of the Albany High School varsity baseball team should not be permitted to buy eggs under any circumstances during this period (Constitutional rights not withstanding) because an egg thrown by one them (particularly pitchers and short stops) can be deemed "a dangerous weapon", especially if it's a "Jumbo" one (see above). This overrides the Constitutional objection on public safety grounds, like yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. Any lower court which found for the plaintiff (or maybe it’s the defendant--hard to tell in these cases) that, on Constitutional grounds, merchants were required to sell eggs to the ball players would (according to our legal staff), be reversed on appeal, and certainly by the United States Supreme Court if the case ever got that far.
4. Egg throwers should also be required to exercise proper respect among themselves. If a boy says to another boy, "you throw like a girl", that should be considered demeaning, sexist, and a mild form of hate speech.
5. Finally, teenagers who habitually flaunt these rules should be assigned to a new set of parents who practice stricter discipline with their kids (if any such ones can be found). BACK