Disaster Shoplifting reaches crisis proportions - Shampoo Locked Up To Prevent Theft

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Shoplifting has gotten so bad nationally that chains like Rite Aid are closing hard-hit stores, sending terrified employees home in Ubers and locking up aisles of seemingly mundane items like deodorant and toothpaste.

Why it matters: Retailers are already reeling from the pandemic, supply chain woes and the labor shortage. Now they're combating systematic looting by organized crime gangs — which are growing more aggressive and violent.

• "It's out of control — it is just out of control," Lisa LaBruno, SVP of operations and innovation at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, tells Axios.
• A lot of the uptick is tied to the ease of reselling stolen goods online, plus the fact that consumers are buying more everyday goods online during COVID.
• "We have experienced a 300% increase in retail theft from our stores since the pandemic began." CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis tells Axios.

At a Rite Aid that just closed its doors in midtown Manhattan, more than $200,000 in goods were stolen in December and January, per the New York Post.

• “They come in every day, sometimes twice a day, with laundry bags and just load up on stuff,” the Post quoted a store employee saying.

Driving the news: The retail industry is pressing Congress to pass the INFORM Act, which would require online marketplaces (like Amazon, eBay and Facebook) to verify sellers and provide contact information to buyers.

• Attorneys general in states like California, Arizona and New Mexico are setting up anti-shoplifting task forces and looking at stricter laws on bail reform and felony thresholds.
• District attorneys in cities like Chicago and New York are considering harsher measures against shoplifters.

The big picture: The problem is made worse by flash mobs like the 80 people who stormed a Nordstrom in San Francisco in November, and organized retail crime groups that often hire homeless people and drug addicts as "boosters" to do the dirty work.

• Store shelves aren't the only places getting hit: Warehouses and cargo trucks are also in the crosshairs.
• Teams of "boosters" will throng a store with laundry bags, grabbing what they can and assaulting workers who confront them — sometimes fatally.

Details: One Bay Area crime ring stole $8 million in merchandise from CVS, Walgreens and Target stores.

• Another one ripped off a staggering $50 million in goods — mostly health and beauty products that thieves stockpiled in a warehouse.
• "More than $1.6 million in razor blades alone were recovered," per Loss Prevention Magazine.

What stores are doing: In addition to locking high-theft items behind anti-theft panels, retailers are arming more merchandise with alarmed security tags.

• They're installing shelf sensors that can tell when a customer has been browsing for a suspiciously long time, and adding "smart" shopping carts with wheels that lock if someone sneaks it past the cash register.
• But too many locks can frustrate honest shoppers — potentially sending them into the arms of an Amazon.com instead of the corner store.
• LaBruno of the Retail Industry Leaders Association says merchants "are always doing a balancing act" to ward off theft while making inventory accessible.

Al Sharpton addressed the issue on “Morning Joe” on Thursday, saying, “They're locking up my toothpaste.”

What they're saying: A survey released in December by the National Retail Federation found that designer clothing was the top item reported stolen, followed by laundry detergent, razors, designer handbags and deodorant.

• The top five cities for organized retail crime, in order, were Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco.

Yes, but: An analysis of crime statistics and other reporting by The Atlantic cast doubt on what it called the "great shoplifting freak-out," citing "fuzzy data" and asserting that what's being lumped together as shoplifting is actually a variety of violent crimes.

Shampoo is locked behind plastic at a Duane Reade in Manhattan. Photo: Jennifer A. Kingson/Axios

 

[NoReturn]

I can't even muster the energy for a sarcastic comment at this point.
Demoralization smells like human excrement on the sidewalk.

 

[Ruin]

Close to 70% of all crime in the U.S is committed by blacks. Stuff like this will continue to happen as long as we keep pretending this isn't the case.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

When I worked in a big chain hardware store in New Mexico, we were explicitly told to NOT STOP SHOPLIFTERS.
I wasn't going to anyways, I have a very strict Do Not Engage policy with crackheads, but we still had some short, dumb, mutt, cashier bitch try to waddle after a shoplifter from time to time.
The incidences of shoplifters just kept going up and up when I left, I can't imagine how insane it is now.

 

[Absolutego]

Close to 70% of all crime in the U.S is committed by blacks. Stuff like this will continue to happen as long as we keep pretending this isn't the case.

This will continue to happen as long as effete liberal DAs pretend that all shoplifting is done out of need and isn't worth prosecuting, black people were just the ones with enough of an antisocial mindset to put 2+2 together and realize that means free shopping.

 

[oldTireWater]

Junkies belong in mass graves.

 

[Kheapathic]

When I worked in a big chain hardware store in New Mexico, we were explicitly told to NOT STOP SHOPLIFTERS.
I wasn't going to anyways, I have a very strict Do Not Engage policy with crackheads, but we still had some short, dumb, mutt, cashier bitch try to waddle after a shoplifter from time to time.
The incidences of shoplifters just kept going up and up when I left, I can't imagine how insane it is now.

When I worked at Wal-Mart, back in the late 90's/early 2000's, we had a strict protocol, but were allowed to engage/chase should it come to that.
The process went something like;
#1. Undercover spots a shoplifter and calls it in; thieves get surveilled and a Manager calls us (cart pushers) to stage near the exit (front, garden, or automotive).
#2. Thieves attempt to leave, Manager and Undercover approach them, give a "We got you, come with us to the back to talk."
#3. If they run, we're allowed to chase as long as their in the parking lot / store property, they make it to the sidewalk, they're free.

Granted this changed after people started getting hurt, but it was a nice little stress relief when dumb girls would try to jack cosmetics and run.

 

[MasterDisaster]

When I worked for Dollar General the store would lose upwards of 10,000$ of theft a month. The biggest items that got ganked often? Underwear/socks, personal care/hygiene products, 5-hour energy drinks, Monsters, medicine and pregnancy tests.

One of the biggest reasons shoplifters pick places like DG and Walgreens is it's common knowledge now that employees are expressly told not to interact...but yet will be harassed with passive-aggressive bullshit about how they need to help cut down on shrink; imagine seeing someone drowning but you're not allowed to jump in and help...you just have to stand on the shore and encourage them not to drown.

I had a friend that worked at a 7-11 that was robbed so often he became desensitized to it. 'Shit's insured' as he put it.

 

[Dysnomia]

It really is bad. In my Walgreens if you go down the candy aisle you hear the service bell even though there isn't one for that aisle. That's to let the staff know someone is there. Druggies are stealing the candy and selling it at the bus station for drug money. They do get caught sometimes. But the employees are mostly young girls and are afraid of addicts going crazy on them. So they can't stop them. I have witnessed a few security guard tackles when the thieves went loco after being caught.Unfortunately there's a security shortage and there's one guy shared between two stores. They have trouble getting anyone to work full time for the local Walgreens. No one wants to deal with it. If they put anything more behind security plastic they might as well just not let you inside at all anymore. They can't retain enough employees to have someone available all the time to unlock the cases.

I'm seeing more convenience stores and take out where everything is behind bullet proof glass and gets passed to you in a slot after you pay. Crown Chicken is behind bullet proof glass. Good idea because we lost the McDonald's due to people jumping over the counter and taking food.

Some people were against all this security because racist. But that's not entirely true. A lot of the druggie thieves I've seen were scuzzy white guys.

We need Judge Dredd. There should be a zero tolerance policy against this stuff.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

When I worked at Wal-Mart, back in the late 90's/early 2000's, we had a strict protocol, but were allowed to engage/chase should it come to that.
The process went something like;
#1. Undercover spots a shoplifter and calls it in; thieves get surveilled and a Manager calls us (cart pushers) to stage near the exit (front, garden, or automotive).
#2. Thieves attempt to leave, Manager and Undercover approach them, give a "We got you, come with us to the back to talk."
#3. If they run, we're allowed to chase as long as their in the parking lot / store property, they make it to the sidewalk, they're free.

Granted this changed after people started getting hurt, but it was a nice little stress relief when dumb girls would try to jack cosmetics and run.

Here was our training:
Step 1: Do not engage with the shoplifters, they will stab you
Step 2: Call management if you see one so we can file a report about it or something, IDK

But there was always some gordita cashier, the position filled only with mentally disabled teenage THOTs, who thought she was a hero and wanted to chase the crackhead with a drill or something.

 

[Ruin]

When I worked for Dollar General the store would lose upwards of 10,000$ of theft a month. The biggest items that got ganked often? Underwear/socks, personal care/hygiene products, 5-hour energy drinks, Monsters, medicine and pregnancy tests.

Dollar stores sell underwear?

 

[Tour of Italy]

• Attorneys general in states like California, Arizona and New Mexico are setting up anti-shoplifting task forces and looking at stricter laws on bail reform and felony thresholds.

Didn’t the California AG start the policy of declining to arrest/prosecute shoplifters under a certain dollar amount in the first place? Or was that a local policy to LA, SF etc.?

Either way, I’m not sure what the fuck they were expecting to happen, or why they’re pretending that they can fix it when it’s largely their own fault to begin with.

 

[MadStan]

You know I don't hear about any Walmarts shutting their doors due to shoplifting. Now why is that?

 

[Absolutego]

Didn’t the California AG start the policy of declining to arrest/prosecute shoplifters under a certain dollar amount in the first place? Or was that a local policy to LA, SF etc.?

Either way, I’m not sure what the fuck they were expecting to happen, or why they’re pretending that they can fix it when it’s largely their own fault to begin with.

It's usually local policy to the city in question. To my knowledge no governor or state AG has been stupid enough to publicly back permitting shoplifting under any circumstances. In CA's case, both Newsom and Bonta or whatever his last name is are very publicly upset about the shoplifting spree.

 

[LaxerBRO]

The solution is simple you wall off or isolate the problem cities and make all the bug men live in the problems they created.

 

[Breadbassket]

You know I don't hear about any Walmarts shutting their doors due to shoplifting. Now why is that?

Here is an article on their shoplifting prevention tactics, and to summarize it, they do not play around.

 

[MasterDisaster]

Dollar stores sell underwear?

Oh yeah, DG has tiers of store types. Some are crammed into tiny ass stores with aisles so small there's no carts and some are fully stocked with produce, frozen sections and even clothing.

 

[Gar For Archer]

When I worked in a big chain hardware store in New Mexico, we were explicitly told to NOT STOP SHOPLIFTERS.
I wasn't going to anyways, I have a very strict Do Not Engage policy with crackheads, but we still had some short, dumb, mutt, cashier bitch try to waddle after a shoplifter from time to time.
The incidences of shoplifters just kept going up and up when I left, I can't imagine how insane it is now.

There’s a difference between a couple random guys shoplifting some toothpaste and an organized gang clearing out entire shelves of product.

The system is designed to deal with the former, it’s literally expected that a certain % of goods will be damaged or stolen, and the cost of trying to prevent it would greatly outweigh the cost of merchandise lost. The system CANNOT deal with the latter - if it happens on a regular and widespread basis, it must be stopped or else the system will collapse.

What this means for you as a consumer aspiring for a five-finger discount from big chains means that you as an individual can get away with shoplifting as long as you don’t do it so regularly and in such great quantity that you make it worth their time to try and stop you.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

There’s a difference between a couple random guys shoplifting some toothpaste and an organized gang clearing out entire shelves of product.

The system is designed to deal with the former, it’s literally expected that a certain % of goods will be damaged or stolen, and the cost of trying to prevent it would greatly outweigh the cost of merchandise lost. The system CANNOT deal with the latter - if it happens on a regular and widespread basis, it must be stopped or else the system will collapse.

What this means for you as a consumer aspiring for a five-finger discount from big chains means that you as an individual can get away with shoplifting as long as you don’t do it so regularly and in such great quantity that you make it worth their time to try and stop you.

I would still not fight some nigga over the glorious holy land of Home Depot, the employees should not be expected to do the polices' job.
Sometimes you would get some Karen ask if we were going to do something, like no lmao.

 

[Gar For Archer]

I would still not fight some nigga over the glorious holy land of Home Depot, the employees should not be expected to do the polices' job.
Sometimes you would get some Karen ask if we were going to do something, like no lmao.

Of course, when I say they need to “deal with it” I mean stuff like getting more security, having an officer on-site in the parking lot, locking up commonly stolen items, etc.