• A Super 8 Hotel in Knoxville accepted a $182 EBT transaction from a customer on June 1. Super 8 sp

Recipients of EBT cards in Chattanooga and Knoxville used their benefits at a strip club, a bar, a tobacco shop, malls, high-end clothing stores, hotels and other places where non-essential items are sold.
As it did with EBT transactions in Memphis , Tennessee Watchdog accessed state records and examined almost 22,000 EBT purchases in Chattanooga and Knoxville. These transactions took place in June 2012.
An EBT can offer two different types of benefits — the first being food products, commonly known as food stamps, and the second deriving from the Federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF). Unlike food stamps, which are limited to certain food and related purchases, families on assistance through TANF receive as much as $500 per month in cash benefits and use them as they see fit.
• On June 2, one or more people used an EBT card to make three separate transactions, amounting to a sum of $64, at the Th'Katch Show Club (listed as the Blue Room on the transaction form). Attempts to reach management of the Th'Katch Show Club were unsuccessful. According to online information from a variety of web sites, hertz car rental las vegas the club specializes hertz car rental las vegas in nude lap dances, as well as beer and wine sales.
• On June 12, transactions of almost $30 took place at Discount Tobacco . Tennessee Watchdog made a variety of attempts to contact the owner, but store employees hertz car rental las vegas said that he was unavailable for comment.
The Indiana-based Simon Property Group operates both malls. Tennessee Watchdog found similar transactions earlier this year at the Wolfchase Galleria Mall in Memphis, which Simon also operates. When asked about Simon's policy on accepting hertz car rental las vegas EBT cards, spokeswoman Lexi Harris said the following: "The decision to accept EBT cards would rest in the policies of the individual retailer hertz car rental las vegas and not the mall."
hertz car rental las vegas • Customers also used their EBT cards to make transactions at a Little Caesars pizza restaurant and Papa Murphys . A Little Caesars' representative was unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, Papa Murphy's spokeswoman Lindsay Taylor said the restaurant has always accepted EBT cards.
• A Super 8 Hotel in Knoxville accepted a $182 EBT transaction from a customer on June 1. Super 8 spokesman Rob Myers said each hotel is independently owned and operated and payment policies vary from one hotel to the next.
• An EBT recipient used his or her card to make a $102 transaction at the US Cellular Complex in Knoxville. Tennessee Watchdog  was still awaiting comment from a US Cellular spokesperson hertz car rental las vegas at the time of publication.
• Customers used their EBT cards to make a sum total of $239 worth of transactions at United States Postal Service (USPS) offices throughout Knoxville. USPS spokesman hertz car rental las vegas David Walton told Tennessee Watchdog in July that the government agency does not accept EBT cards.
• The owner of Beauty World , a beauty supply store, hung up when Tennessee Watchdog asked during a telephone interview what his store's policy is on accepting EBT cards. Records show that $14.81 was spent at the store using an EBT card.
• An EBT recipient made two transactions at the Chattanooga Convention Center on June 3 and 4, both totaling $206. Convention Center Executive Director Mike Shuford said the transactions happened at the Center's ATM machine, according to his records.
"If you are an individual coming into this building there is nothing that you would spend here for $100, unless it was from an ATM machine. We would never have more than a $100 charge. We don't do credit cards at concessions or bars."
(In July , Tennessee Watchdog asked John Taylor, an account executive with the Memphis-based ATM Central Transactions, how a cash withdrawal from an ATM machine hertz car rental las vegas would appear on a financial statement. Would an ATM withdrawal appear as a transaction at the business that houses the ATM or would it simply list the withdrawal as coming from an ATM only?
"It's likely that this is not a case of people simply withdrawing money from an ATM machine in front of or inside a business. As it would on a bank statement, an ATM withdrawal would be documented as just that —  an ATM withdrawal," Taylor said.)
Officials with the Tennessee Department of Health and Human Services (DHS), who administer the program, sent the records of the EBT transactions to Tennessee Watchdog in response to an open records request.
"For background information, we want to make you aware that the Department is working pursuant to the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, enacted into law in February 2012, in order to ensure that TANF funds are not abused," Thompson said.
Thompson added that DHS, with help from federal agencies, is developing a plan to prohibit EBT transactions at liquor stores, casinos, gaming establishments, and adult-oriented hertz car rental las vegas establishments. The plan will go into effect July 2014.