Woman fined $88K after kids collect clams from Pismo Beach

88K penalty for clams while the maximum penalty for animal cruelty is 20K which they seldom enforce maximum amount.

Ridiculous! Criminals bail at $1000 and then kids accidentally collect clams and get fined for 88k. BS.

How the hell were these kids to know? Your excuse is to educate them on clams? What a joke. Meanwhile retail thieves get a slap on the wrist.

The person who issued the 88k fine is a sociopath

Cheaper to steal from a store...nothing will happen to you.

Idgaf 88k is absolutely ridiculous.

So she got the ticket while still there, at the beach? He could have schooled them all on why this is illegal, had them empty their buckets of the clams-put them back....and everything would have been fine. 90k dollar fine on an average family is life ending! This is absolutely ridiculous. I am speaking as a long time law enforcement officer-there's something called "officer discretion." It means the officer doesn't HAVE to arrest, you can talk with the offender, advise them of the law and its consequences, it doesn't have to include an arrest. This didn't have to end in an almost 90k ticket. I wouldn't go to that town or beach for any amount of free vacation! This is horrible.

She knew they were clams. Had her kids collect them for her so she could say “we didn’t know!” 🙄

worried about clams but not the murder rate.

You have KIDS shooting people and nothing happens to the parents who brought up the little animals, yet this? WTF is wrong here?

2:14 -> Did she not notice that her tattoo is of a scallop, not a clam? 🤣

Yah, I don't think the kids accidentally collected 72 live clams that you have to dig for. Everyone knows that two closed shells equals a live clam. The fines are so high because there are organized criminal poaching gangs that make big money collecting illegal mussels, clams, abalone, and other tidal shellfish. There wouldn't be an animal left if the fines were only $500. She got lucky.

The judge was merciful in reducing the fine. But the officer should have given a verbal warning and returned the clams. It's not like the clams are dead.

Thank you judge, 500 is reasonable not 88k

I guess we’re lucky they didn’t pick up a sea turtle for its shell. 72 heavy live clams. I can see why the officer was skeptical of innocence.

Nobody is that dumb to dig up 72 live clams and "think" they were collecting a few seashells. Especially with all the signs all over the place. Those clams are buried in the sand. They knew exactly what they were doing. Glad the fine was reduced to a reasonable amount but no need to pretend innocence.

Meanwhile, they do nothing about the looters and robbers in california.

$88k is excessive

That tattoo is not a clam. It’s a scallop.

And while they were fining this single mom $88k for clams a protected class citizen was in the parking lot stealing his 3rd Kia of the day...