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October 10, 2015 6:02 PM   Subscribe

“Every cliché was born for a reason. But why does a cop need a doughnut?” Cara Giaimo, in Atlas Obscura: The Long, Sweet Love Affair Between Cops and Doughnuts.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle (24 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
I've always figured that it's down to doughnuts being cheap and being still pretty tasty after they're a few hours stale.

Myself, I don't care for 'em- they're tasty, but insubstantial, and eating a doughnut makes me no fuller, which sucks for something that's like 200+ calories.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:14 PM on October 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


I always feel like, Of course cops like donuts. Everyone likes donuts. Donuts are awesome.
posted by Etrigan at 6:24 PM on October 10, 2015 [17 favorites]


I kind of feel like what I really need explained is not "Why cops and donuts?" but "Why donuts for breakfast?" I'm always baffled when I read stuff from the 50s or earlier where coffee and a donut is the standard working guy morning meal.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:25 PM on October 10, 2015


Back in college, I did a ride-along with a cop as part of a class, and part of the experience was stopping by a donut shop; I suspected that part of the reason was simply to break up the monotony of an eight-hour patrol car shift, although I always wondered if he did because he thought that I expected it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:31 PM on October 10, 2015 [7 favorites]


I kind of feel like what I really need explained is not "Why cops and donuts?" but "Why donuts for breakfast?" I'm always baffled when I read stuff from the 50s or earlier where coffee and a donut is the standard working guy morning meal.

Do you mean that isn't the case anymore? For whatever reason, I thought that Americans did consider doughnuts a breakfast food. (That's definitely not the case here in Australia - it's more an afternoon snack). And the one academic conference I went to in the USA (in Wisconsin), provided doughnuts and coffee upon arrival each morning, so that cemented the idea in my mind.
posted by lollusc at 6:58 PM on October 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


No one ever considers what the doughnuts need. Maybe they need an authority figure, someone to drive them somewhere, a warm hand to hold.
posted by oulipian at 7:09 PM on October 10, 2015 [37 favorites]


So I got arrested once. No kidding, on the way to the station they actually stopped at Tim Horton's and left me cuffed in the back seat while I presume donuts were enjoyed. I always suspected they did that because I emphatically told them I needed to pee badly, and if I let go in the patrol car that would be better for them. That's my story.
posted by Tad Naff at 7:15 PM on October 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


The inescapable Canadian institution Tim Hortons was founded by the titular hockey player and a Hamilton cop, Ron Joyce. My understanding growing up at ground zero of donut culture is that cops work 24/7 and might need some caffeine to keep alert at 4:00 AM, but fifty-plus years ago, it was not easy to come by a place open at 4:00 to sell cops some coffee. Donuts go with coffee, so Joyce created it as a donut shop. (I think Horton's more valuable contribution was his famous name.)

These days, the company barely condescends to sell donuts; the word came off the signage fifteen years or so back, along -- weirdly -- with the apostrophe in "Horton's."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:29 PM on October 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Do you mean that isn't the case anymore? For whatever reason, I thought that Americans did consider doughnuts a breakfast food. (That's definitely not the case here in Australia - it's more an afternoon snack). And the one academic conference I went to in the USA (in Wisconsin), provided doughnuts and coffee upon arrival each morning, so that cemented the idea in my mind.

Yeah, I've seen that too, but only ever at meetings and conferences. I think it's less "donuts are a breakfast food here" and more "donuts are what you get if you need to give your co-workers some faint token of appreciation — but, like, not enough appreciation to merit buying everyone pizza."
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:38 PM on October 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


Donuts are indeed the pizza of breakfast. Something almost no one eats everyday and that can be purchased as a special treat if the time of day that said treating is to occur is morning rather than afternoon or evening.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:54 PM on October 10, 2015 [11 favorites]


I always thought it was because they conveniently fit over a truncheon for carrying on your beat patrol
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:56 PM on October 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


My father was an EMT in the 70s and early 80s. They used to stop at doughnut shops and the reason was pretty much what was laid out in the article: it was a place they could sit for a long time (while waiting for calls), smoking, drinking coffee (and eating a few doughnuts I guess), without having to spend a ton of money or being made to feel unwelcome, because most people don't sit down in a doughnut shop, so the owners weren't worried about turning tables over.
posted by lunasol at 8:06 PM on October 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


"Myself, I don't care for 'em- they're tasty, but insubstantial, and eating a doughnut makes me no fuller, which sucks for something that's like 200+ calories."

Insubstantial? 200 Calories? You're eating the wrong doughnuts.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:07 PM on October 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


ricochet biscuit: "These days, the company barely condescends to sell donuts"

That's too bad. My last Tim Horton donut was in 1995, which is the only time I was in Canada. I was in Windsor for work. It was January, it was cold and I trudged hungry and alone out of a car assembly plant at 4 am after inspecting our company's fucked-up aluminum castings for 16 hours and getting yelled at by the line manager for same. I found a Tim Horton's near the hotel and had a couple chocolate dipped donuts and a big coffee, double cream, double sugar. I also had a nice conversation with the older lady who worked there. I've discovered better donuts since then (do not leave Indianapolis without trying Long's Donuts), but those two donuts, coffee and friendly conversation were the perfect things for me at that low and lonely moment.

Being a cop can be lonely, cold and boring. Why fault them for a little pick-me-up during a dull day?
posted by double block and bleed at 8:23 PM on October 10, 2015


double block and bleed: "ricochet biscuit: "These days, the company barely condescends to sell donuts"

That's too bad. My last Tim Horton donut was in 1995, which is the only time I was in Canada. I was in Windsor for work. It was January, it was cold and I trudged hungry and alone out of a car assembly plant at 4 am after inspecting our company's fucked-up aluminum castings for 16 hours and getting yelled at by the line manager for same. I found a Tim Horton's near the hotel and had a couple chocolate dipped donuts and a big coffee, double cream, double sugar. I also had a nice conversation with the older lady who worked there. I've discovered better donuts since then (do not leave Indianapolis without trying Long's Donuts), but those two donuts, coffee and friendly conversation were the perfect things for me at that low and lonely moment.

Being a cop can be lonely, and cold and boring. Why fault them for a little pick-me-up during a dull day?
"

I haven't? (BTW, I self-identify as a geek, and I'll be damned if there's not at least a couple packets of ramen in the cupboard at all times.)
posted by Samizdata at 8:31 PM on October 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


@samizdata I can only accept a professional diagnosis for geek. Too many people are taking this unfortunate condition to excuse themselves from normal social behaviour.
posted by Tad Naff at 9:38 PM on October 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


it was a place they could sit for a long time (while waiting for calls), smoking, drinking coffee (and eating a few doughnuts I guess), without having to spend a ton of money or being made to feel unwelcome

Yup. And a table = place to comfortably fill out paperwork.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:52 AM on October 11, 2015


Might today's highly-caffeinated donut shop coffee be a factor in some cases of police shooting civilians?
posted by Carol Anne at 6:44 AM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


it was a place they could sit for a long time (while waiting for calls), smoking, drinking coffee (and eating a few doughnuts I guess), without having to spend a ton of money or being made to feel unwelcome

And yet private citizens who seek the same qualities in a park or public space are liable to be forced out by these police officers for loitering or violating a sit-lie ordinance or the like.

Everybody needs public spaces.
posted by Monochrome at 7:40 AM on October 11, 2015


I had a journalism school classmate working for the weekly newspaper in Morton, Wash. when Mount St. Helens blew in 1980, covering the town in ash. He showed me an aerial picture of downtown published in, I think, LIFE magazine in the days after the eruption. He pointed out two of the town's police cars, parked in front of the donut shop.
posted by lhauser at 10:38 AM on October 11, 2015


Tad Naff: "@samizdata I can only accept a professional diagnosis for geek. Too many people are taking this unfortunate condition to excuse themselves from normal social behaviour."

Dude, you know how hard it is to get a counselor to let you bring a live chicken in their office to bite it's head off for a real diagnosis?
posted by Samizdata at 2:59 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Monochrome: "And yet private citizens who seek the same qualities in a park or public space are liable to be forced out by these police officers for loitering or violating a sit-lie ordinance or the like."

Jackbooted thugs, will we ever see a human being in Central Park again?
posted by Bugbread at 9:14 PM on October 12, 2015


Central Park exists, problem solved.
posted by Monochrome at 12:35 PM on October 13, 2015


Yay!
posted by Bugbread at 9:06 PM on October 13, 2015


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