Posted on 05/31/2023 3:23:28 AM PDT by dennisw
One grocery chain is fighting hard to keep stores open despite rampant shoplifting and an uptick in violence forcing many retailers to leave major cities across the country.
Giant Food, which operates 165 supermarkets in D.C., Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, has taken multiple measures to combat theft and keep stores safe, according to a report in The Washington Post. That includes limiting store entrances; hiring security guards; restricting the number of items at self-checkout stands; putting less high-value items on shelves; and securing razor blades in containers that make noise if opened.
Company president Ira Kress said he's seen theft rise at least "tenfold in the last five years" and violence increase "exponentially."
He hopes these measures will help keep stores open, even if they inconvenience shoppers. "The alternative is worse for customers," he told the Post. "The last thing I want to do is close stores. But I’ve got to be able to run them safely and profitably."
Fears of violent reactions from shoplifters has also changed some companies policies over the years. "We used to chase shoplifters," Kress said. "And you’d get the product back, and nobody would ever fight you. … I didn’t worry about somebody pulling a knife or gun on me [40] years ago," he told the Post.
A consumer and retailer industry expert said that retailers will continue to leave cities as it has become difficult for them to maintain a profit with organized retail crime and theft at an all-time high.
"We’re seeing the highest level of organized retail crime and theft ever," Lakshman Lakshmanan, senior director in Alvarez & Marsal’s consumer and retail group said in the Post report.
Other retailers have similar policies in place, due to fears the employee might be harmed or killed in an altercation with a shoplifter.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
When you can walk out with $949 of merchandise knowing cops won’t arrest you and courts have been told to throw out any charges, well hey, not a bad gig. Do that at a handful of stores every day and there’s no need to get a real job. Let the real paying customers foot the bill. When stores in da hood close down, move your hustle to the wealthy neighborhoods.
One day the BLM (that’s not shockingly disappeared million$$$$$$$$$$ of donations) will figure out how ridiculous it is to destroy their own neighborhoods but more impactful to venture out to the suburbs.
Boo freakin’ who. We’ve lived in a food desert forever and thankful for that choice. No public transportation. No pizza delivery or grub hub.
Both of those concepts were in my plan.
You might be amused by this: I was looking at a warehouse here in Cincinnati. It was currently being used by a mid-eastern convenience store owner for his inventory storage. We had a tour. Everything was counterfeit. It had labels that looked exactly like the real product, colors, logos, everything except for minor spelling difference. Like a “CLARKE BAR” or “SKITTLS” or “M~M’s” COKE COLA. 10000 square feet of that stuff. Hilarious.
Open some stores in safer, more profitable places. For each store opened and running well, close one that isn’t.
Unfortunately, consequences need to happen. If the justice system as a whole refuses to act appropriately, then it needs to happen a different way.
Oh no, the registers had more than 10-15 items listed on the screen. I didn’t get an exact count, but the attendant had to hit the cancel butter quite a few times.
Thanks! So they walked out with a decent amount of free stuff. I was curious.
I hope and pray I never get to the point where I would even entertain the thought of doing that.
The Soros DA here in Los Angeles has over 10,000 backlogged cases because he refuses to prosecute. There are I think 72 Soros DA’s in the country plus the democrat politicians who support the criminals as they themselves are crooks.
Anything can and is counterfeited it seems.
I wonder how big a distribution they had.
Hey, money is money.
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