>>>>>>>In addition, if I were an executive with the bank, I'd have strongly considered the positive PR a public food giveaway would generate. Banks could certainly use some these days.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>If you were the an executive at the bank and you did that, you'll be in trouble too.
>>>>>
>>>>>How? Technically at that point the food belonged to the bank.
>>>>
>>>>Hrm... Perhaps I'm misunderstanding things. What I read in the article, the bank evicted the shop because the shop owners owed them money (so I would assume that means the bank owns the building). At what point did the shop's goods become the property of the bank?
>>>
>>>The moment the bank had legal ownership of the building.
>>
>>No, the impression given by the article is that the shop was leasing the space, therefore, the bank has always had legal ownership. I'm basing this off of the use of the term 'evicted' as opposed to 'foreclosure'.
>>
>>Unless what the shop owed the bank was loans to purchase the products for resale, then yes the argument could be made that the goods belonged to the bank. Otherwise, it's the shop's to do with as it pleases.
>
>But the moment they were technically evicted they forfeited the contents of the building which they did not remove...hence ownership of the contents is now the banks to do what they please with - which in this case was to send all the merchandise to a landfill.

Both cases can be correct depending on the terms of the lease. Some property owners require the inventory to be collateralized. Others may have seperate guarantees or no guarantee beyond 1st & last. Still others may have specific seperation. I know of one restaurant where anything attached to the building belongs to the building owner (sinks, stoves, refridgeration) where anything easily movable belongs to the leasee (tables, chairs, food). Given that the Supermarket owners tried to give the food away before their were locked out and not after, I'm operating under the assumption that the inventory now belongs to the bank.

Update : There's also the matter of other creditors besides the bank. Supermarkets have suppliers and supermarkets going under tend to owe those suppliers. A giveaway of inventory by police (or the bank for that matter) could bring about a lawsuit from them as well.

2nd Update : According to this story : The Marshal's Office says that when an eviction takes place, any property that is left inside of a building becomes public property.
http://www.wjbf.com/story/21800863/laney-supermarket-gets-evicted?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8712479

That changes the whole story.