[Steve_Seattle]

One wonders if the massive shoplifting phenomenon that we've experienced in recent years can at least partially be traced to the messages kids are receiving in school. In my area, the shoplifting is not limited to the homeless, the addicted, and the poor. I know a woman who works in a grocery store in an affluent neighborhood a mile away from the main thoroughfare where the homeless congregate. She says that most of the shoplifters there - and they are rampant - are teenagers and pre-teens who look like they are well-off, or at least middle-class.

Stores in the area are forced to put more and more items in locked cabinets or even in rooms accessible only to employees. If you want - say - an electric toothbrush, you give a coupon to a clerk, and he retrieves the item from the back room.

Last week, I was in a Safeway looking for some AA batteries. I couldn't find them anywhere, so I went into a secure area where they keep alcoholic beverages and OTC pharmacy items and asked a clerk. He pointed to a locked cabinet and said he would open it for me when he was finished with a customer who was checking out. When he opened the cabinet, he asked me which batteries I wanted, handed them to me, and then relocked the cabinet.

Also last week, I was at the post office to buy some stamps, and the clerk wouldn't let me hold the box with the various sheets of stamps in it. She held the box and riffled through the stamps, and I told her which ones I wanted. She said this was the new policy.

[V_TWIN]

After I retired I saw a local news story about a woman that worked at my facility.....she was always on the fast track but common belief was she was at least 2 levels above where she should have been and was Making at least $90k annually. DEI for sure.

The news story said she had been arrested for shoplifting high-end items at Dillard’s department store.

That sounds like an illness.....this guy just saw an opportunity and acted.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I find it interesting to look at the items that are in the locked cabinets at stores. It tells you a lot about the local culture.