$3,000'PER-MQNTH PROBLEM
Market restricts
By Pat Me vean
Staff Writer
After being confronted with more than $3,000 worth of bounced checks a month, the 32nd Street Market in University Village is being more cautious in its check-cashing procedures, said Morrie Notrica, owner of the market.
The market will still cash checks up to $25, provided the checks have the person s name and address printed on them, and are accompanied with proper identification. It will not cash two-party checks, except when the check is made out by the parents of a student to the student. These types of checks need the personal okay of Notrica. Also, the store, noted for its leniency in cashing checks for students, is taking a more careful look at the USC payroll checks of students.
“We have a terrible problem with bad checks and I don’t know how I can cope with the problem. I'm open to all suggestions.” Notrica said.
Notrica said his store makes it easier to cash a check than some banks and much easier than most other businesses.
“Other markets usually require a check guarantee card before they will cash a check and others need two credit cards for identification. We will cash checks for students in almost any situation. They can come in here on a busy Friday afternoon. or late at night, and be able to cash a check.” Notrica said.
But despite the fact that the store is providing a service. Notrica said his market is still the bad guy when checks bounce. He says people will de-
check cashing
mand their checks be cashed and have, in the past, threatened employees.
“I go out of my way to make it easy for students. I will cash checks even when the student’s bank won’t. I will hold a check up to a month if the student wants me to. I’ll cash checks, if I know the student, for much more than the regular limit,” Notrica said. “And still, even though I'm providing a service, I still have books and lists full of bad checks. And many of the same names keep popping up.”
He said a letter is sent out to each person who has bounced a check and if the matter is not cleared up in 10 days, it’s sent to Telecredit, which will charge the person $5 for writing a bad check.
The store charges 10 cents for checks written up to $10 and 25 cents for checks from $10 to $25, but Notrica said that fee is only a drop in the bucket when it is compared to the money the store loses from bad checks.
“I don’t like to chaise the fee, but it used to keep me even; now it doesn’t come close,” Notrica said.
Signs posted on the cashier's ofTice now state the store will not cash county checks, payroll checks or tax refund checks, but Notrica said USC payroll checks will still be cashed.
He said he realizes everything revolves around the check in a campus setting like USC, and he knows people don’t like to carry cash in the area, but he said he won’t continue to cash checks for a student who continues to bounce them.
PERSONALIZED—Elizabeth Griffin, an employee of 32nd Street Market, cashes a check for a customer. The store has restricted check cashing in an effort to curb the problem of $3,000 worth of bounced checks a month. One rule, shown above, is the unacceptance of nonpersonalized checks. DT photo by Denis Wolcott.
University to assist Bahrain government
Daily Ip Trojan
University of Southern California
Volume LXXI, Number 38	Los Angeles, California	Wednesday, April 13, 1977
Law students argue best case in state moot court competition
By Shelley Hoose
Staff W riter
“Please the Court, my name is Dolores Cordell.”
“By what reason do you think you have any right to address this court?” asked the judge.
“By the fact that I was born in 1947.”
“But isn’t it true that all babies in 1947 were born mentally deficient?”
“. . and all judges born in 1952 were equally so...”
This was a mock demonstration of the exchange between a judge and an attorney by Dolores Cordell and Victoria Naidorf, third-year law students who won first place in the annual Roger J. Traynor State Moot Court — or just moot court
—	April 1 and 2.
Moot court is a competitive game in which students from 15 law schools statewide pretend to be appellate lawyers, and argue with a judge about a particular constitutional problem in California. The students are given the topic six to eight weeks in advance and are expected to prepare briefs for either side of the argument to present to a judge.
The topic in this competition, which was held in San Francisco. was “snob zoning,” the euphemism for exclusionary zoning in which, for example, an area is zoned by the city to accomodate only one residence per four acres.
“Just the very rich, of course (could afford it),” said Naidorf.
Keefe Griffith, a second-year law student, wrote the brief for Cordell and Naidorf. who argued it in front of the judge A brief is a document that cites all the legal points in favor of one side of an issue. Cordell and Naidorf decided to write in favor of the zoning, and then argued against it.
“You usually take the side you’re naturally opposed to,” so that all the counter arguments that may be used against you are evident, said Cordell.
Each team of two or three persons individually afgued two rounds with the judge the first night they arrived. The schools were slowly eliminated over the weekend until Pepperdine, Western State of San Diego, UCLA and USC were left in the semi-finals. USC then beat UCLA in the finals.
The students play the lawyer representing the w’itness and give reasons the law may violate
the constitution and the state statutes of California.
“It’s an endurance test. It's hard to argue for 15 minutes straight with the judge. It comes down to how long you can stay on your feet and still sound intelligent,” Naidorf said.
Among the men who judged the semi-final and final competition were Donald Wright, former chief justice of the state supreme court; Raymond Sullivan, former justice of the state supreme court; and J. Anthony Kline, legal affairs secretary to Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
The university has signed* a two-year contract with the government of Bahrain, an independent island-nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia, to provide technical services to the government.
The contract, which took effect March 5, is open-ended. It’s basically an agreement by the university to use its faculty’s expertise to help the government of Bahrain in whatever areas the university is able. This excludes, however, those areas dealing with politics and international policy, said Henry Birnbaum, special assistant to the president for international programs, who coordinates the Bahrain program.
“We listen to their requests, and we try to honor their requests if we are able to. If we can’t, we tell them so. We can also make suggestions to them,” he said.
The contract is also open financially since it depends on what they ask the university to do, Birnbaum said. “They will pay all costs, plus overhead.
plus a small management fee.”
Each time the government of Bahrain makes a request for some particular program, the university will develop an appropriate faculty group to do it, Birnbaum said.
So far. studies have been conducted in Bahrain by two teams of faculty members from the university’s Center for Public Affairs. For two weeks, beginning at the end of February , the teams, at the government's request, examined what kinds of programs were needed in Bahrain for executive training and government planning. They are currently in the process of making proposals as to what activities they’d actually like to undertake in these' two areas this summer and fall.
"In executive training, we re developing a program for training top level officials of the government of Bahrain in the field of public administration. In government planning, we re helping them develop mechanisms for long-range forecasting of the nature of the government and government wide decision-making,” he said.
The groundwork for the contract was established last winter when President John R. Hubbard met with Bahrain's prime minister and a couple of other cabinet ministers.
“They discussed a possible relationship between the university and the government." Birnbaum said. “Subsequent to that, I visited Bahrain to follow-up on the discussion and out of that came the contract proposal.”
In addition, the university had a long-standing relationship to the country prior to Hubbard's visit, having educated many students from Bahrain.
Although the entire program is coordinated by Birnbaum. the two teams of faculty members are directed by Robert Biller, dean of the School of Public Administration. The chief of mission for the teams in Bahrain was John Gerletti. director of the International Public Affairs Center.
Team members involved in the executive training were professors David Haiti. Gerletti, Chester Newland and Linda Wallen.
DONALD'S DATE — Disneyland's most famous duck opens his eyes at the delight of his new-found friends Chris and Liz Fontana. Donald and his best friend Goofy were on campus to promote Trojan Night at Disneyland May 15. The event is sponsored by Alpha Kappa Psi, a business fraternity. DT photo by Denis Wolcott.