The new normal is coming to a store near you – products locked behind plexiglass, and a 40-minute wait to buy toothpaste

Submitted by Dave Hodges on Friday, November 3, 2023 - 13:23.

SUSAN DUCLOS

What product from Walgreens, Walmart, Target or your favorite drug store, would you be willing to wait 20 or 40 minutes for an employee to mosey on over, unlock the plexiglass cage, before moving to the next aisle, just to kick back and wait again for the next product?

This is the new normal for people in parts of California, New York, New Jersey and other high crime cities and states.

A recent piece at Daily Mail is headlined "Frustrated shoppers are forced to wait as long as 40 MINUTES to get their hands on basic groceries like toothpaste, baby formula and vitamins at Walmart and Target as retailers lock up products to combat soaring crime."

Shoppers are being forced to wait as long as 40 minutes to buy basic essentials like baby formula and body wash as major retailers lock up products to counter skyrocketing rates of theft.

Reporters from Inside Edition visited five Targets, five Walmarts and five CVS stores in New York and New Jersey and timed how long it took for employees to retrieve different products from glass casings.

'Everything's locked up,' journalist Lisa Guerrero said as she stepped inside a Target in Manhattan where baby formulas, razors and cleaning products were kept under lock and key.

Americans knew this was coming as article after article in 2021, 2022 and 2023 highlighted the crime in LA, and other crime-ridden states, reporting on the measures being taken as businesses weighed whether the loss of business by people that refused to wait was more cost efficient than the industry's $95 billion shoplifting problem.

In 2018, they were locking up condoms, so we can see how over the years, more and more items were put behind plexiglass, and then more and more stores started doing it, and then more and more cities were added to the list of geographical areas where practically everything was being locked up.

As a side note: If Soros DA's and prosecutors would do their job and arrest, charge and prosecute the thieves, maybe people wouldn't have to wait 40 minutes for an employee to come unlock the cage the products you want are locked up behind.

Just spitballin' here.