Japanese Pizza Smugglers

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]Asahi: Pizza deliveries shut down goodwill restaurant on U.S. military base
Dastardly pizza eaters have violated the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, forcing a U.S. military base to close a restaurant set up to promote goodwill between troops and residents. Yokohama Customs officials have put their foot down on the brazen act of residents buying the tax-free pizzas at the U.S. Naval Air Facility Atsugi--and taking the food out of the base. The officials say that once the pizza has been removed from the U.S. base, it is subject to Japanese taxes. Since the taxes were not paid, the move violates the Status of Forces Agreement, which spells out how the U.S. military can operate in Japan...more...

[adamukun]

There are two things that can bring people of disparate cultures together - good pizza and a good caper. And now due to some rag called a Status of Forces Agreement, which was supposed to help bridge the cultural gap, there can be no more gray market pizza.

Most irritating of all: $16 pizza is considered *cheap* in Japan!

[emperor]

During a visit to Yakota Airbase: I just glimpsed a Taco-Bell and perhaps also what might have been a Krispy-Kreme.
With no immediate plans to visit the US again, I really wanted to sample them but alas there was no time!
I guess I'll have to go on with only a vague & 2nd-hand understanding of those American 'culture' references on The Simpsons and Family Guy.

[james]

they could make a f&cking pizza worth a shiat here that didn't have garbage like mayo and corn on it, or charge 3,000 yen for a frickin "large" that isn't, we wouldn't have had this problem in the first place.

[Greji]

And now due to some rag called a Status of Forces Agreement, which was supposed to help bridge the cultural gap, there can be no more gray market pizza.

Actually there is no bridge to the SOFA. It defines the gap and how the US and Japanese must act to the people who fall under it.

It is probably one of the least understood and the most misquoted documents in Nichibei relations.

It defines who is considered to be US Forces and also lays out the jurisdiction and the responsibility for the conduct of investigations of US Forces persons who commit crimes in Japan and how and where they may be tried for offenses and where they may be encarcerated when found guilty.

It is an agreement appended to the US Japan Security Treaty and as such, carries the appropriate force of international law.

Since the majority of US forces fresh food products must be purchased from Japan, in part due to Japanese food stuff embargoes or tariffs, I think the tax office would be hard pressed to apply a tax assessment to a large USFJ combination with extra cheese!