California to make it illegal for stores to stop thieves

This could have been put in the Economics section, because it will totally change the landscape of how retail works.

Imagine you're a small business owner and a thief walks into your store and starts stealing all your merchandise. And legally you are not allowed to stop the thief.

This sounds totally insane to many, but the state of California is close to doing exactly that.

Senate Bill 553, which was submitted by Senator Dave Cortese, has been passed by the State Senate and will now progress to policy committees in the State Assembly. Cortese hopes the proposed law will prevent workplace violence and protect staff from being forced by their employers to step-in during robberies.​

Bill to Stop Employees Confronting Shoplifters Passed by California Senate, Newsweek, Chloe Mayer, June 5, 2023

A lot of times police in these areas will not even bother to respond to report of shoplifting. The vast majority of the time the thieves will never even be caught, if they are not stopped at the scene of the crime.

Predictably, the new bill has provoked outrage from small business owners and retail businesses.

I predict such a law would end up resulting in a total change in the retail landscape.
Retail businesses will resort to doing one of three things.
(1) Retail businesses will adopt the "Costco model", where customers will be required to pay an expensive annual membership fee to be permitted to enter the doors and shop at the business. People's identification will be checked at the entrance to make sure they have a membership. The membership fee will mostly keep away the riff-raff.
(2) Customers will have to order everything through the internet, and then they will come to the business to pick up their purchases. They will only be allowed into a small entry room to pick up their order, customers will not be permitted access to the shelves with the merchandise.
(3) Some retail businesses will build controllable security entryways that have two doors, both of which cannot be opened at the same time. If a thief tries to flee the store without paying for merchandise, one of the employees can press a button trapping the thief in the entryway until police can arrive.

I imagine some small business owners might get so frustrated they will disregard the law and take matters into their own hands, perhaps even paying some organized crime group to "handle" the problem.

 

California is just a joke of a state. They will just keep raising taxes as more businesses leave

 

Everything will be in cages.

The 1-way doors would only fly if they auto-unlock in a fire, then the thiefs just pull the fire alarm to get out with the loot.

Many businesses will close. The rest will lock everything in cages and you'll have to ask for help getting anything.

The 'organized crime' option might not be too far off. Offering to keep 'vigilante' thugs in the area to track down theifs and return merchandise (for 'protection' money) may become the only viable option. Here's betting CA lets it fly ...as long as the crime boss pays taxes and fits in an approved 'minority' group.

Man, CA is such a shithole...

 

this crap will ultimately lead to a brutal backlash against criminals. If I were on a grand jury, I would have a hard time indicting a store owner for doing whatever to someone robbing him. I suspect that more and more people will feel that way if this bullshit continues

 

I'm truly sorry to all those anti-crime advocates hoping for any reason to open fire on someone in their store.


Some stores prohibit their employees from getting involved with petty theft, as a fireable offense. Hey, I remember at least one news story since the 1990s that some Walmart employee got fired for taking it upon himself to chase a shoplifter out to the parking lot.

If this brings out the looters in mass in California, then businesses will respond with their feet (as in closing up shop and walking out of the state). The market will give us the answer.

 

I think you're totally missing the point. If a business owner (who owns the merchandise) wants to set a rule that the employees are not permitted to stop theft of the merchandise, there is no problem with that.
The real problem though is that, in many jurisdictions, store owners and corporations are being terrorized by lawsuits, courts that will make a company pay out a more than ridiculous gigantic amount of money if a thief gets injured while an employee is trying to stop them. This has practically forced corporations to set these rules.
And besides that, a lot of times those in charge of the company are not actually acting in the best interests of the owners of the company, the shareholders. Easy to be magnanimous with thieves when most of it is not your money.

 

related story: Thieves steal priceless German jewels, as guards watch and there's nothing they can do (Nov 25, 2019 in Gun Control section)

 

I left California for other reasons, but this sort of nonsense would send me packing if I was still there. A government that fails to protect its citizens is unworthy of holding office.

P.S. You didn't mention the fourth option...

 

Actually, that is the majority of corporate owned stores. That is why they hire professionals to do that.

However, that is not the case in most that are owner-operated businesses.

And this is literally just going to make California more hostile to small businesses and cause even more of them to close. And in the end even more people to leave the state and the cities and state will lose even more tax revenue.

 

That actually was one of the major reasons I left the state.

I used to actually work as a professional Loss Prevention agent. And during that time I was assaulted multiple times, as well as hit with cars, and had guns and knives pulled on me.

Now under the law, the moment somebody uses force to try and steal (even pushing the employee), the crime goes from petty theft straight to robbery, a felony. However, in California that is never done. In all of the cases I had that high levels of force were used by the criminals (including pulling deadly weapons), not a single one of those individuals was ever charged with anything more than the petty theft. Even in clear cut cases where it was all caught on video with multiple witnesses against an individual already on parole with a long record of felony robberies. Just charged with petty theft and released.

The state has absolutely no concern for their citizens, they care more about the criminals than the people they victimize.

 

California has lost ... its ... mind.

But I don't blame the politicians. I blame the people. They elected the politicians, so they have no one to blame but themselves.

Hey California, You asked for this. You got it. Enjoy your shithole.

 

In that I do agree. However, the politicians in that state have even said "FU" to the voters, ignored the state Constitution, and they still are voted back into office.

I almost see the state as a giant co-dependent cycle now. And am more and more in favor of seeing it broken into multiple states. Even the parts that were once largely immune to the insanity of the large cities are now just as bad.

 

And this is why crime causes poverty and not the other way around.

 

Who knew that the Snake Plissken series was non-fictional after all.

 

Creating more poor people is what democrats do best.

 

Keep voting Democrat and this is the sort of retarded fruits that your votes will plant the seed for.

 

Truly disgusting. The threat of jail is a deterrent and California is tossing away the opportunity to protect its businesses and citizens from criminals.

When convictions are almost guaranteed and they don't prosecute, they're turning the law into a joke.

Yours is a damning conclusion, but I think one even the most liberal folks concerned with rehabilitating lawbreakers has to concede has merit.



Things are worse now than when this survey was done. Seems as though Americans are getting fed up.

 

It's not just liberal states being soft on crime. Conservative states like Oklahoma are looking at government cost savings by not bothering the police with theft and not charging felonies for theft under $1000. Shoplifting is rampant in convenience stores especially....and it affects the paychecks and wellbeing of those young kids that work there.

I can see stores going to a credit card entry only like this particular QT has done. https://www.quiktrip.com/quiktrip-o...-powered-by-amazons-just-walk-out-technology/

It would exclude cash only...but savings from tamping down theft would make up for it.

 

Hell, the funny thing is that right after I moved from California to Oregon, they passed a new law legalizing small amounts of drugs for "personal use". And their entire claim is that the new law would address the imbalance of incarceration of minorities.

Yes, makes absolutely no sense, but that is typical far-left politispeak for :we will guilt you into voting for this because... racism:.

Well, the problem with opioids and other drugs has now exploded in the state, with reports of overdoses at levels hundreds of times higher than ever before. This week my new town even passed a resolution asking the legislature to throw that law out because the drub problem here is now out of control. And more and more people and communities are asking for it to be repealed, but I don't see that happening any time soon. Because to repeal it would mean that the politicians would have to admit they were wrong in the first place. And we all know exactly how often that happens.

 

Opioids and other highly addictive drugs ... I'd give them free to anyone willing to register as an addict. We have to take all the incentive to get someone hooked away. OTOH, if you're an addict and you break the law by stealing, you get "sentenced" to forced treatment. If we actually cleared every case brought on by people stealing to get drugs and/or get by because they're too messed up, we might have a shot at beating the problem.

Now, that wouldn't solve the stealing problem, but it would put a dent in it. Others who steal: the sentence goes up each time you're caught. We shouldn't have lots of people on the street with strings of convictions for theft, break-and-enter, and certainly not for robbery, assault, extortion, etc.

You can't half-ass "legalize" addictive drugs by keeping the price up and furthering black markets. Governments are even trying to make money off taxing pot.

 

The problem is that makes sense. And that is originally how it was (that was actually enacted by President Nixon way back in 1971). First offense, and you are given a choice of treatment or jail. Second offense, the judge might let you return to treatment. Third offense, obviously treatment was not working so you go to jail.

The same with repeat offender laws. Get caught stealing, you get a fine. Second time, stiffer fine and maybe jail time in county. Until you got to the third to fifth time, where it was state prison because obviously you were never going to stop.

Now, they only get a ticket. Just a fine, so why even bother going to treatment? And you can have 20 arrests for theft, it's just the same sentence as your first one, a fine. Without the stick of going to jail, there is absolutely no reason for anybody to take the carrot of treatment.

And it's not even petty theft. Under California laws now, any "non-violent crime" has little to no jail sentence. Even if you are convicted of 77 counts of Felony Burglary in less than a year.

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/...er-jackson-sentence-riverside-county/3195748/

So guess what will happen? He will be arrested yet again in the future, and kicked loose yet again. And apparently none of the legislatures give a damn about the people he has harmed, just so long as he spends no time in jail as he was not violent. And the fact that absolutely nobody in the California State Assembly is even trying to address this problem tells me they do not give a damn. They care more about criminals than those they impact by their crimes.

That is another joke entirely. My oldest is a user, and he outright told me that he only buys from the state once a month. Like cigarettes they put a tax stamp on each baggie sold. So when the new stamp comes out he buys some from the pot store to get it, then the rest of the month he gets it from the local dealer and puts it in the baggie with the tax stamp. Pot is still an out of control problem, all they did was hide it in order to make money off of it.

If somebody in the state was smart, they would start to go after those drug dealers the same way they went after Al Capone. Charge them all with tax evasion, and sentence them to Federal Prison to not paying their taxes.

 

The problem is that possession is an offense. I'd like to see addictive drugs treated as we do alcohol except that addictions, including alcohol, should be treated if the individual is otherwise running afoul of the law. I think we should be careful about going further with forced treatment. If you handle addiction, you should be left alone; if you ask for help, we should make sure you get it.

I'm not sure where the line should be drawn, but it should be drawn somewhere. I think I would go with a shorter leash for some crimes and being careful with others. Years ago, we could have had four-time losers for being a homosexual and now most of us reject making homosexuality illegal.

I don't accept a notion that people in your line of work should face violent thieves helping themselves to what isn't theirs. On your behalf to the pols: "How many times do we have to deal with the same criminals before you do something to stop them?"

Absurd.

This is an unacceptable response to the problem.

They're screwing up by taxing it. Just regulate the sale. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to take opioids, heroin, etc. even if they're free.

Just make addictive drugs available to registered users.

 

It is an offense, but only carries a ticket with a fine. No risk of incarceration at all, so no reason to stop using.

Is homosexuality still illegal?

But that is the attitude of DAs all over the state. My youngest actually used to be an armed security guard. He quit doing that after a friend of his was shot and killed by a felon with a record, and the harshest charge he was facing was discharging a firearm in the city and manslaughter. He was not even charged as a felon in possession of a firearm. That is why it is getting harder to find security in California, the DA pretty much ignores anything done to us and considers it the risk we should take in our line of work.

Yep, but that is how it is now. 77 felony burglaries in under a year, and the only time he spent in jail was awaiting trial. Once the trial was done and he was convicted, he was released because he was "non-violent".

And that is also common. The case where I was brutally assaulted by a gut with a rapsheet a mile long, the cop actually told me when he was arrested he was likely to get the 25 to life sentence because he had in excess of 3 violent felony convictions. The DA knew that, so only charged him with petty theft and dropped the assault and robbery charges. When that happened I realized that they would not protect me, so started to look for a new line of work.

And the thing is, if they want to try those kind of "feel good" programs that they think will solve a lot of the bad problems in society, fine. I am not in favor of it, but am willing to at least give it a chance to see if it does some good. But when years later it is shown to not only be a failure but making things worse, they are showing absolutely no interest in trying to fix the problem they created.

And yes, way back in 1994 California enacted a "Three Strikes Law" to try and curb the repeat offenders. Commit a third violent offense, and you go away for 25 years. However, the DAs simply work around that by refusing to charge most people eligible under the law with any violent offense they had done. Kind of like how San Francisco threw out the majority of gun offense charges. When there is no prosecution, there is nothing to stop criminals from doing it again.

 

There are a lot of addicts who never tangle with police. Why criminalize their drug taking? But if they're causing problems by breaking other laws...

It was illegal not long ago. The point is that criminalizing behavior as basic as one's sexuality could easily result in a miscarriage of justice, as was the case with homosexuality.

You'd think they'd be more protective of people filling a niche police aren't able to fill given the laws and their enforcement.

Absurd. How many jobs did the perp actually pull?

Shouldn't happen. That guy shouldn't be running around free.

If they're done correctly, some programs can get some people on the right track. What about people who remain on the wrong track, for whatever reason.

I wonder if the DA would have gone for a felony if the guy hadn't faced three strikes.