Store Shelves Looking Bare Again And Tire Places Are Overwhelmed.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Its actually that bad at the Krogers here... except sections of many aisles are like that... Aldi's is not so bad off...

[Leo Enticknap]

...the real reason they stopped stocking the store was because 7-11 is closing that location at the end of the month, due to rampant shoplifting and street crime in that area.

Several big stores near me have reduced their opening hours (the manager of a Stater Bros gave the reason as being unable to get staff to work late evenings due to increased street crime), and some gas stations have stopped accepting cash, for the same reason; despite one of them continuing to advertise separate cash and card rates on its marquee! Personally I think it's very bad PR for them to stop accepting cash, but continue to charge an extra 10c a gallon to pay by credit; but as they are the cheapest gas station in town by a significant margin, that isn't going to hurt their business.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I was working a private event at a screening room in downtown San Francisco on Sat nite.
I walked over to the 7-11 store a few doors down to grab something to drink, and I noticed
that the shelves where the candy bars, potato chips, & other 'junk food' snacks were usually
located were practically empty. Looking around I noticed that almost all of the shelves in the
store were understocked. I left without buying the beverage I went in to get, since they were
out of that too. After the screening, I was going to pop into the store again and take a photo
of the empty shelves, and it was closed. I don't know if the closure had anything to do with
'supply issues' or if they have cut back their night-time hours, as many other stores in San
Francisco have done, as a result of the rampant shoplifting surge that's been going on here,
as you may have read about or seen on the news. It was only 9:30pm, and this was usually
a very busy location on Market St that was usually open 24/7. I've worked in & around that
area for over 20 years, and I can't ever remember seeing that store closed. (Except maybe
for a couple of days after the 1989 earthquake, when the power was out for 2-3 days)

Jim, A news report all about the organized shop lifting going on in San Fransisco....

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/busin...eft/index.html

[Jim Cassedy]

I was working downtown, not far from Union Square, the night that big 'smash & grab' happened. I heard numerous police cars
and sirens and saw lotsa flashing lights up towards that area. When I grabbed an UBER car a few minutes later to take me
home, we had to detour around the area because the police had blockaded the area.

> I went by the same area yesterday, and there was a noticeable increase of police presence, both in personnel and vehicles,
and they had even set up one of their "mobile command post" vans.

I MANAGED TO GRAB A QUICK PICTURE AS I RODE BY UNION SQUARE YESTERDAY

PoliceVan.jpeg
SFPD MOBILE VAN ( & The Big Union Square Christmas Tree In The Background)

[Leo Enticknap]

So they shut the stable door after the horse bolted ... in this case, down the 5 to LA. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the MO of this gang is a shock and awe / one and done approach, and that they're unlikely to hit the same city twice.

Presumably the vehicles involved were either stolen, had phony tags, or both, given how few of the perpetrators have been arrested so far.

[Bobby Henderson]

I'm sure Jeff Bezos is grinning over the terrible situation of rampant shoplifting at brick and mortar stores. We're even seeing some of this crap here in Lawton. Multiple people hit the store at the same time, grabbing what they can and making a run for the exits.

Retailers have been caught in a catch-22 situation. Stores like JCPenney are staffing the floor with as few employees as possible in an attempt to save on payroll costs. With fewer associates patrolling the floor that makes it easier for shoplifters to rip off the store. To compound the problem worse, these stores have even cut corners on security. The past couple years have been pretty bad for employees working in a variety of retail stores. The higher ups look for "efficiencies" to "return value to share holders." They've frequently been doing this, but driven to do so more than ever with this pandemic. What that translates to is a variety of schemes to pay the workers less money. That can be in the form of just eliminating a bunch of jobs, cutting hours of existing employees or re-defining an employee's job from a decent paying supervisory position down to something more entry level. It just destroys morale. How much effort is a cashier going to make at stopping some shoplifters if her job makes her want to slash her own wrists?

Frankly I'm kind of surprised our local JCPenney store is still open. We lost our Sears store years ago, and Dillard's followed not long after it.

About the only thing I can imagine would circumvent this kind of crime is if the store had the ability to go into lock-down. If a gang started grabbing stuff off the shelves what would they do if something equivalent to prison bars slammed down at every entrance and exit? Legit customers and staff would be locked in with the thieves. So that would be a hazard. Most stores also have video cameras, so anything else the thieves did before the cops arrived would compound their charges. It's probably more likely stores will invest in much more sophisticated video surveillance technology, recording faces and actually tracking identity. Anyone wearing a mask wouldn't be able to enter.

[Leo Enticknap]

California has already regulated the use of facial recognition technology by private businesses so tightly as to effectively outlaw it. In what struck me as a worrying development, the sheriff of LA County was on the radio during my drive home this evening, announcing that henceforth, he would approve all concealed carry permit applications for pretty much any reason, provided the applicant isn't a convicted felon, and actually encouraged retail store workers to arm themselves. So if shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores wasn't stressful enough already, we now have the prospect of walking into a gun battle between store workers and shoplifting gangs to look forward to!

As you point out, Bezos is the winner in all of this. I can see supermarkets and drugstores moving to an online order model in an attempt to provide the convenience of a local point of collection without the security risks of a traditional store, where you can still collect your goods from a counter at the entrance to the store, but they won't actually let you in to select goods from the shelf yourself.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

This stuff is finally hitting the news...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/us/sm...cec/index.html

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

This stuff is finally hitting the news consistantly....

[Frank Cox]

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