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Originally Posted by Cajundaddy
We had a related experience with customs at JFK. We bought a dry salami in Budapest and planned to snack on it in our hotel room at some point with local bread and cheese and a little wine. From there we headed to Vienna and on to Berlin by tour coach. The food was hearty and we never touched the salami so I put it in the checked bag and flew from Berlin to JFK.
On arrival we collected our luggage and waited in the customs line when a cute little Beagle was being led by a customs agent through the line. This dog must have known I am a dog lover because he sat down right next to me and let me pet him. 
I didn't realize I had just been marked for contraband and when we got to the front of the line we were promptly directed to the secondary inspection room where they carefully inspected every item in all 4 bags, wife's purse, and had us remove our shoes for cleaning. Apparently there are 2 kinds of dry salami. The kind you can buy at an open market (which we did) and the kind you can buy from a USDA approved deli. Who knew!!
The inspector was just doing her job but it took a long damn time while the rest of our family waited outside. At the time there were bovine diseases like mad cow and they were taking no chances that we might have purchased the salami on a farm and had contaminated beef or contaminated shoes.
After 40 minutes or so we were free to go and fortunately we had several hours layover before our final flight to ONT. Yes it was a pain, and yes it was our own ignorance that got us into that mess. Not bringing home any more international produce from now on. If we don't eat it we will just give it to the gypsy children. |
Had a similar experience at Dulles returning from Lisbon last month. My wife decided those "extra" Euros needed to be spent at the duty free store in the Lisbon airport, so she bought a small pack of sliced salami and bottle of wine. Going through the primary CBP lane at Dulles she helpfully volunteered that she purchased some sliced meat, but it "was okay" because it was from the duty free store. She learned "duty free" does not equal "USDA Approved." It's lots of fun to spend an extra hour in customs after a long flight only to have your purchase get tossed in the trash.
You can't expect airport security (anywhere) to apply common sense or anything other than "the book" to dealing with issues. Part of it is they just don't have the time, and I think the other part is they get numb to the human side of it.