DATELINES

Nov 1, 2001 12:00 PM

Charleston, S.C. — Two businesses have notified the FBI about unauthorized calls placed to the Middle East through their switchboards. In one case, a man posing as a telephone technician duped an operator at WCSC-TV into giving him access to outside phone lines, said Mary Rigby, Channel 5's assistant news director. Two calls were placed to Yemen and Egypt before the station's long distance carrier spotted a problem and shut down the lines, she said. Thieves used the same strategy to make fraudulent calls on Piggly Wiggly Corp.'s phone lines. Six calls worth $380 were placed to Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries in one day before the ruse was detected, said Christy Flowers, telecom manager for the supermarket chain. Jill Sparks, who works in Sprint's corporate security department, said countries such as Yemen and Myanmar are “hot spots” for phone fraud.

Medford, Ore. — Bob Dylan wanted tighter security for his current tour, but he didn't expect to be held up at the door before his own show because he didn't have a backstage pass. Dylan was set to play the last Oregon stop on his tour when he had trouble getting through a checkpoint at the Jackson County Exposition Center. It wasn't clear whether the three security guards, all in their 30s, recognized Dylan. But even if they knew who Dylan was, the guards had strict orders from Dylan's security director that absolutely no one was to get backstage without an official credential. So when a slight, wild-haired man tried to walk through the checkpoint, the guards stopped him. Dylan was surprised, and a brief scene ensued. One of the guards put her hands up and gently stopped Dylan. After his security director came over, incensed, both he and Dylan demanded that the guards be thrown out.

Colchester, Vt. — A pub faces a seven-day suspension after the manager failed to notice a man sleeping under the table-soccer game. Clayton Reynolds, manager of the Edgewater Pub, forgot about the sleepy patron amid the commotion caused by the pub's front door falling off its hinges at closing time. Reynolds said he lost track of the drunken man in the commotion. “If he had been in plain view like in the bathroom or on one of the chairs, I would have seen him. I would have taken him home,” he said. The man awoke just after 5 a.m. and tripped the pub's alarm. When police responded, the door fell of its hinges again.

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