California Advances Bill To Help Shoplifters Steal

SHOPLIFTING

Tyler Durden

SB 553, authored by Democrat Senator David Cortese (San Jose), requires employers to maintain violent incident logs, provide active shooter and shoplifter training, and to discard policies requiring workers to confront suspected active shopliftersthe Epoch Times reports.

 

According to Cortese, the bill is intended to "help employers keep employees safe at work."

The bill, which passed the Senate by a vote of 29 to 8, is pending further review by state Assembly committees.

According to the California Realtors Association (CRA), the bill will apply to all industries - not just retail, if passed. CRA president and CEO Rachel Michelin told Fox2/KTVU that the bill "goes way too far."

"I think it will open the doors even wider for people to come in and steal from our stores," she said.

According to the CRA, most retailers already prohibit regular employees from approaching someone who is shoplifting. These situations are handled by employees specially trained in theft prevention instead.

If employees trained in theft deterrence are not allowed to do their job per the bill, "What does that mean? We are opening up the door to allow people to walk into stores, steal, and walk out," Michelin added. -Epoch Times

According to a position letter from the California Chamber of Commerce, the bill "takes a regulation written for hospitals related to workplace violence and applies it to all workplaces, regardless of size of resources."

"Substantively, SB 533 does not change the realities around workplace violence—namely, that it is a criminal matter that employers are not well-equipped to prevent."

In recent years, shoplifting has become a serious problem, with retailers such as Target anticipating a $1.3 billion hit due to "theft and organized crime."

In Downtown San Francisco, Target employees told the San Francisco Standard that they're experiencing at least 10 thefts a day.

The Target store at 1690 Folsom St initially locked up most of its merchandise to deter shoplifting, but quickly changed to only locking up more valuable goods.

As shoplifting plagues the San Francisco Bay Area, confronting thieves could be dangerous, even for trained professionals.

Whether to confront or not confront shoplifters has become a hot topic, especially after a security guard shot and killed a suspected shoplifter at a Walgreens store in downtown San Francisco.

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins decided not to charge the guard, Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, after reviewing the surveillance video and Anthony’s testimony. -Epoch Times

It's unclear whether SB 553 applies to security guards.

Meanwhile, in 2014 California voters passed Prop 47which downgraded certain thefts and drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors. Its most well-known statute raised the minimum amount of stolen goods from $400 to $950 for a theft case to be classified as a felony, which critics consider to be the main cause of a rise in petty theft across the state.

It also allowed felons serving prison terms to petition for resentencing under the new classifications. Those who have already served their terms can also have their past convictions reclassified as misdemeanors.