Monday, June 12, 2023

Coming soon to a store near you?

 

I see that moonbats in California, the land of fruits and nuts, are trying to make it even easier to shoplift.


If California isn’t already the nation’s shoplifting leader, it soon will be if State Senator Dave Cortese’s SB 553 becomes law, according to some retailers. The bill just passed the state Senate and now moves over to the Assembly.

Ostensibly aimed at curbing workplace violence — a nice way of saying “criminals who come in to steal stuff and create the conditions for violence” — California Retailers Association chief Rachel Michelin described the bill in harsh terms. “It says no employee can approach someone who is shoplifting. So even if someone is trained on how to deter someone from doing that, now they’re not allowed to approach someone. So, what does that mean?”

“We are opening up the door to allow people to walk into stores, steal and walk out,” she said.

. . .

What SB 553 looks like to me is more virtue signaling, enshrined into law, that California now turns a blind eye to shoplifting. That’s certainly the way criminals will read it.


There's more at the link.

That sort of attitude, plus the breakdown in civilized standards and law and order, is prompting an increasing number of retailers to pull out of California's cities.  Why should they do business there when they know, in advance, that they're going to be victimized and lose money?

It's not just California, either.  In more and more big cities, retailers are fleeing high-crime areas or changing their store designs to make it more difficult for shoplifters and organized gangs of looters to do their thing.  A redesigned Walgreens store in Chicago illustrates the trend.


A Walgreens store in Chicago reportedly has been redesigned to allow customers to browse only two aisles of products – after they pass through anti-theft detectors.

The changes at the store on 2 E. Roosevelt Road in the South Loop area put most of the merchandise in aisles behind staffed counters, which customers can shop digitally through kiosks, according to Block Club Chicago.

"We are testing a new experience at this store with new concepts, technologies, and practices to enhance the experiences of our customers and team members," a Walgreens spokesperson told Fox Business in a statement. "It continues to offer retail products and pharmacy services, just with a new look and feel that focuses on shopping digitally for convenience.

"Inside the store, customers will find an area where they can pick-up orders, digital kiosks for placing an order, as well as an area to shop for essential items," the spokesperson added.

Block Club Chicago reports that a sign instructs shoppers to "place your order and relax" while staff at the store pull requested items off shelves kept away from the public.

"Let us do the shopping," the sign reportedly reads.


Again, more at the link.

Problem is, if we can't browse the aisles for ourselves, we lose the opportunity to compare brands, products and prices.  If that's the case, we'll do better to shop online, where we can call up every product in a category, order the ones we want, and have them delivered right to our door.  That also saves us from the risk of running into criminal gangs looting stores, or other criminals and street people targeting passersby in any of a number of ways.

Effectively, this development may mean the end of supermarkets as we know them - at least in high-crime areas, and those where urban society is breaking down.  Say goodbye to the jobs of everyone working there, plus all those catering to the store's needs and those of its employees - other shops, goods and services, public transport, the lot.

Congratulations, moonbats.  You've become so politically correct that you've morphed into an economic disaster.



Peter


24 comments:

  1. It's not really a new approach. It's Service Merchandise with an iPad rather than a paper order pad. And, probably, a worse ratio of sales to personnel costs.

    I expect it will work to the extent of keeping theft down, but it will either result in a slower shopping experience, more expensive, or both, depending on how stores try to balance the shopping time of the customer with staffing.

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  2. This is simply "tying the knot." Most companies already prohibit their employees from engaging shoplifters. My son almost got fired a few years back because he watched two "culture enrichers" pocket a bunch of stuff and halted them at the door. This is true. I was THERE. His manager told him to "let them go." I told her that I didn't work there and ran the porch monkeys down. When I returned to the store the manager berated me for chasing them. I told her "Today they came in as 13-year-olds stealing bags of candy. If you don't stop this now, they'll come back in a few years, put a gun to your head, and demand what's in the cash drawer." The manager just said "This is company policy." ...And here we are... DAMN, I wish I could be wrong ion the right direction for once!!!!

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  3. As a former Californian(escaped in 1975)I cannot believe what has happened since my departure, truly unbelievable.

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  4. I already pay extra to shop at a semi-local Publix rather than the Wal-Mart down the road. The $30-50 I lose is a tax I pay for avoiding d-bags.

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  5. Asinine? Yes.
    But also moot before it's even considered.
    Relax.

    This is just the elected retards virtue-signaling their mating calls.

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  6. Once all of the stores leave the crime ridden areas, the law abiding citizens living there will have to travel to other areas to shop. The option of shopping online won't be available to them once the delivery trucks are constantly robbed in their neighborhood, and they can no longer get deliveries.

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    1. There is already commuter crime. Have worked in 2 big box stores after retiring. Showed store manager how to calculate I had more purchasing power at 16 getting minimum wage. Fact is no one on sales floor is getting paid enough to take the risk. Supposedly 80% of theft is store employees but I don’t buy that. A bounty system could work but not with current legal system

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  7. Do I have to wear blackface to shoplift in CA or can I just go into a store, browse and take what I want? Does this apply to the few gun stores remaining as well, or do I take my chances?

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  8. Welcome to the USA version of The Soviet Gosudarsevnoi Universena Magazin (GUM store - loosely, Government Variety Store, more loosely a Walmart with relatively higher prices, cheaper goods, and shoddier services).

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  9. Anon on target at 2:04. This is how you end up with SA level hijacking.

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  10. Re “Do I have to wear blackface to shoplift in CA” That is deeply offensive and you will be hunted down by the same 8 FBI agents who investigated dozens of identical garage door pulls; tried, bankrupted, and then sentenced to many long years for your hate crime. Just wear a black ski mask and avoid the hassle.

    I predict membership-only stores with screened entry and background/credit checks. Will the shoplifting criminals be able to get in? NO. Will all their friends, neighbors, Moms. Dads, Grandmas, and elected officials be able to pass the background and credit checks? Also NO.

    Will they reconsider their political preferences, no snitching, and soft-on-crime policies? Also NO.

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  11. I noticed on a map of retailers leaving San Francisco that there were two Amazon Go stores among them. First, I thought they were experimental and were spread far apart, so there shouldn't be two of them. Second, being experimental, they are expected to lose money. And third, those places cannot exist where shoplifting is tolerated. "Just Walk Out" technology only works if the customers scan in, and not if they jump the turnstiles.

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  12. I think this is the point of all this; fewer choices controlled by fewer people. Concentration of control

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  13. About 35 years ago I had to drive up to the French Consulate in LA to get my visa to go to France. It was just about the time the courts ruled that the high end stores on Rodeo Drive could not lock their doors and only buzz people they approved the look of, into the stores to shop. They were getting robbed and ripped off. Since the issue went away I assume all the very high end shops on Rodeo drive went away too.

    Here in metroparkcentralis we no longer shop at the local Heinens and it doesn't really have anything to do with the social order. We drive another 3 miles away to its sister store further into the burbs. We do it simply because there is a much better/larger selection of what we like and the parking lot never has bugfu$$ crazy dumb drivers that can hit 5 cars trying to get into or out of a parking space. I've seen it happen half a dozen times there in the last 10 years.

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  14. Getting rid of actual stores will consolidate the source of goods into the hands of a small group of very large and powerful vendors. Vendors who will be amenable to whatever demands the criminals in office make of them. This will grant those in charge even MORE power over everyone and everything. And that ultimately is ALL that matters to the leftists who have seized power.

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  15. Closing stores will only force the NAPAs to find other places to loot.

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  16. That is pretty much the Costco / Sams model. The culture enrichers haven't yet started carjacking their customers in the parking lots, but I imagine it won't be long before that starts.
    John in Indy

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  17. I predict membership-only stores with screened entry and background/credit checks.

    Ooooohhh! Like a subset of McMaster-Carr, open 24x7, and a worktable in the bolt aisle, so you can bring in your project at 2am and sit it down for 30 minutes and get all the right lengths with no extras or mistakes. Locate it next door to the hackerspace.

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  18. Last May, we had a local election in San Antonio with a proposition on the ballot to omit charging theft unless the value stolen in question was over a certain amount - and the proposition was resoundingly defeated. The activist who had brought the proposition to the ballot thereupon went on a long whine afterwards about how the PD had come out against her sensible, humane, generous proposition because (reasons!) and I snarled, "No, you numbskull, it wasn't the police against it, it was everyone who could read the news stories about thieves in California raiding stores and shoplifting goods only up to that amount, and do you think we wanted to see that happen here?"

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  19. I have told people before," Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out."

    It appears that not many listen

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  20. I remember too that the good people of La Jolla, CA were adamant that the damned trolley would not run into their town and fought hard to keep access beyond the means of riff-raff. On the gripping hand, they were unable to deter the pelicans and the whole place stinks to high heaven from the bird poop on the cliffs.
    We always laugh as we drive by.

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  21. @Celia:

    But was the idiot recalled immediately for even proposing that?

    And nota bene: She was a local homegrown idiot, not a transplant from anywhere else, wasn't she?

    There's your problem set.

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  22. I wonder if you can shoplift a car and no one will be able to stop you?
    Heltau

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  23. It's called carjacking and it happens hundreds of times every single day.

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