By Milt Harris ——Bio and Archives--September 8, 2023
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I have written several columns over the past year about stores that have closed due to theft. One store in San Francisco had never made a profit in seventeen years and after doing everything imaginable to deter theft, they had no choice but to close their doors. Compounding the problem are other issues. Stores are telling employees not to interfere if they see someone shoplifting, and in some Democratically run Marxist cities, if you take less than $1000 in merchandise, you are not prosecuted. This results in smug emboldened thieves that think they have a right to steal. One store chain actually fired six employees for hindering thieves as they stole merchandise. So you and I get to watch disgusting videos of criminals with full shopping carts leaving stores and loading their cars with stolen products.
Believe it or not, a huge black market has developed for cleaning products. So named brand items have literally been cleaned off of the shelves by unrepentant animals.
The result is that honest people suffer. A Giant Foods store located in D. C.’s 8th ward, has been forced to remove Tide laundry detergent, Colgate toothpaste and Advil pain reliever from their store shelves. In addition, they were forced to hire more security, Lock up items that are easily stolen, block off secondary entrances, move products popular with thieves out of reach, limit the number of checkout items and then still check customer receipts at the door.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Giant President Ira Kress stated the unfortunate truth:
“We want to continue to be able to serve the community, but we can’t do so at the level of significant loss or risk to our associates that we have today. At this particular store, it’s actually worse, not better, and we’ve invested a significant amount of money here, even more security here than any other store.”
“I don’t want to do this. I’d like to sell those products, but the reality is that Tide is not a profitable item in this store. In many instances, people stock the product and within two hours it’s gone, so it’s not on the shelf anyway.”
Target is another store that has suffered significant losses. In fact, it was one of the stores that I spoke about in a previous column, albeit in a different area of the country.
In August, Target’s CEO Brian Cornell told the Post that:
“Our team continues to face an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime. During the first five months of this year, our stores saw a 120 percent increase in theft incidents involving violence or threats of violence.”
Diane Hicks is the Giant Food Senior Vice President of Operations. She lamented to the Post her disappointment in not being able to properly serve their honest customers:
“We have no other choice. I’ve been leaving it out for our customers, and unfortunately it just forces all the crime to come to us.”
How bad is it? Last year’s National Retail Study reported that retail crime increased 26.5 percent in 2021. Which resulted in $94.5 billion dollars in losses. (That’s Billion, with a “B.”)
This is a trend that I believe will spread. Retailers can’t continue to lose money because liberal Democrats don’t have the guts to face the truth and to punish the guilty. As in all things with the left, honest citizens become collateral damage, so they can endear themselves to more and more liberal criminals.
Let’s face it, these crooks are their voting base. Those ballots can’t disappear and reappear on their own.
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Milt spent thirty years as a sales and operations manager for an international manufacturing company. He is also a four-time published author on a variety of subjects. Now, he spends most of his time researching and writing about conservative politics and liberal folly.