Whomever is responsible for running the Twitter account for the York Regional Police in Ontario deserves at least a free lunch this week – and maybe a day of parking wherever he or she wants – as one specific Tweet yesterday morning racked up 3,960 retweets (and counting) and gained the YPD a ton of new followers.
After a Toronto mechanic named Sunith Baheerathan Tweeted a request for some dealers to come sell him pot at work, the YPD took notice and provided quite the hilarity on an otherwise tame Tuesday.
According to the CBC News, Baheerathan works for the Mr. Lube auto repair and maintenance franchise, or rather, he worked for Mr. Lube, as his original Tweet was brought to his employer’s attention and he soon Tweeted that he received his “call of termination.” He also eventually Tweeted that he was in tears because so many people took his initial Tweet “way too serious” and he emphasized his belief of how absurd this whole thing is by adding:
“Never knew weed smokers are more wanted in society than shooters & rapists. Big smh to all of y’all.”
Okay, for starters, I am pretty sure that if someone Tweeted, “Hey y’all, just shot and raped a bunch of people, come on down to Mr. Lube and I’ll tell you about it,” that person would be in jail ASAP. No cutesy Tweet response, no several thousand RTs and no emoticons. Just jail.
Naturally, some people came to Baheerathan’s defense with the time-honored counterargument of “Don’t the police have anything better to do than bust a guy for weed?” and some even wondered why the YPD is on Twitter in the first place when there are “real crimes” out there to go after.
But I’m a simple guy who typically leaves the debates to the cable news shows, so I’ll just editorialize by offering three thoughts:
1) Joking or not, don’t try to buy drugs on Twitter.
2) Joking or not, if you do try to buy drugs on Twitter, don’t mention your place of employment and don’t suggest that a drug dealer meet you there. I’m pretty sure if Beheerathan left that part out, he might still be employed by Mr. Lube.
3) If you want to argue with the police about drugs, at least say something topical like, “Meanwhile, Mayor Rob Ford is smoking crack.” But that might open a whole different can of worms.