Greggs shifts food behind counters to stop thieves

[SerendipityJane]

I'm old enough that my DM was more used to this sort of operation than the new fangled "self service" that appeared in the 60s.

Once again the feeling of travelling backwards in time doesn't seem to quite go away.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c17r52rvj2lo

I saw someone pocketing a sandwich in Pret and staff came after them. I was gobsmacked.

I think we'll start seeing more and more of it, and similar to covid days, when shops served through doorways and windows (or hatches) and the staff would go and get what you wanted to buy. A bit like the "olde days" of corner shops where everything was behind the counter and you gave your shopping list to the shopkeeping and your basket and s/he'd pick it all for you from shelves behind the counter and from in/under the counter.

After seeing that other thread, I was a bit more aware and noticed our little village sandwich/pie shop had put their stand of crisps and cold drinks fridge behind the counter - these had always been in the main shop floor area for as long as I remember. I remarked on it and the owners confirmed it was because too much was being stolen! And that's not a big busy Greggs, it's a tiny little owner-managed village shop.

It's high time the police and courts stopped ignoring such crime, and shame on the CPS and governments for bringing in the £300 threshold under which no action is taken. It's literally a shoplifter's charter.

Well there's very little to no concequences for the person doing it, police don't even attend a lot of the time because they have little in the way of resources to start with and what they do have is being politically directed rather than stopping the fundamental wrongs like stealing stuff that doesn't belong to you.
And even if the police do catch them there's very little punishment for it, so basically it's a risk free crime.
And because people confronted by staff or security get aggressive or violent and again, there'll be little to no concequences for that either even if they're caught, so no I don't expect them to potentially risk their safety for shoplifting, and yes I'm aware that it means the prices go up but I blame the lack of concern from the people who are supposed to be keeping law and order and making sure there's enough money and bodies to do so.

If hiding the stock away is the only way to stop it then we'll have to live with that.

dont blame them police wont come out for low level thefts anymore

Why would you want to be a thief? Theft pushes up prices for all of us and is immoral. You don't want to live in a society where people just take things from anyone, anywhere because they want them do you?

Why would you want to be a thief? Theft pushes up prices for all of us and is immoral. You don't want to live in a society where people just take things from anyone, anywhere because they want them do you?

I don't blame Greg's at all many years ago all goods where behind the counter shame really.

One of the best videos ever…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2490079/Video-Sheffield-shopkeeper-karate-kicks-shoplifter-Poundland.html

It tends to be high value items, like the 'specialist' baby milks, expensive moisturising creams and so on

In my local Boots, they have sliding baffles that rattle as they are moved across the price tag bar, attracting attention around the Vichy, Clarins and other expensive off the shelf brands and for some products, including baby milk, you have to pick a card off a hanger and bring it to the cash desk

My local supermarkets have locked boxes for expensive health and beauty items like branded vitamins, Canestan and condoms

Give it a break. Can people not read between the lines anymore? It’s actually worrying with the lack of comprehension.

It's not new. I used to have a neighbour who worked for a large company and offered to get me a free telephone (this was in the days when everyone had a landline) and when I asked her what she meant, she said 'Oh we let the odd one through.'

No, I didn't take her up on it. I was so irritated by her attitude that she was offering me a big favour.

Well you sound delightful……

It’s sad. I was going to say that at least when things are behind screens, we have to interact with staff members and ask for what we want, encouraging human contact but you’re right, we will probably just have touch screen ordering soon so nobody has to actually look each other in the eye or speak to each other.

They had school shoes and trousers on but black hoodies with the strings of the hoods pulled. It was in the middle of Liverpool so can imagine there are lots of local school kids around town around that time.

That’s so sad. Obviously they’re just copying the adults they’ve seen on TikTok and YouTube with no consequences. I feel so bad for the mental health of the workers also. Sort of undermines you and must be so frustrating time and again watching this happen when they work hard at their job and are trying to take pride in their work - especially if it’s a first job 😔

It is a shame about people stealing. Greggs is a generous and fair company, so much cheaper than high street cafes.

This. It is a fundamental change in the social contract and it’s a very bad thing.

Having said that I lived in Liverpool in the 90s and everything was behind plexiglass!

My DS helps put in a village community store. A lot of the staff are elderly volunteers or DoE. They have a group of young kids from a local site regularly steeling. Police not interested. I’ve told my son not to intervene. I don’t want him getting stabbed over a packet of jelly beans.

I saw a security guard restrain a shoplifter in M&S. He sort of folded him up, it was fascinating to watch! Then someone called the police and they came and arrested the thief.
(Of course the last sentence is made up, but the rest is true).

Scumbags, the lot of them. Thieving tramps.

Why on Earth would you want to do the same?

It's such a shame they're having to do this.
It's just a few stores, at the moment but if it gets rolled out more widely that will make life more difficult for non-verbal DS1. He also struggles to communicate by any means with strangers so appreciates being able to select what he wants for a meal deal and hand it over with his money.

It doesn't surprise me, though. Our big Tesco has the spirits on locked cabinets a d went through a phases of displaying protein bars in individual locked and tagged plastic boxes and Dunelm, of all places, has done the same with some of their branded bedding.

We are undergoing a slow, creeping anarchy - one sausage roll at a time!

I was in Brum last August & went to the Greggs in the Jewellery Quarter for breakfast for DD and me (we were staying overnight after travelling through the airport the previous day) and there was a man being apprehended by a member of staff who was trying to get the sandwich in his hand back from him. The man wasn’t giving up of course, but the female staff member wasn’t either. It was a total stand-off. She said she’d spoken to police but I wondered when on earth West Midlands’ finest is going to turn up for a sandwich theft, quite frankly. This is the problem, retail and hospitality staff don’t have any support from the police, at all, so to avoid a potentially violent situation they are now being told to just let it go. And this in turn gives people the message it’s a free for all, and the same thing happens on public transport. People don’t pay, all I do as a transport worker is put a report on an app, and the BTP say, oh, ok. Then people think, oh, I’ve got away with it before, so and it was easy, so I’ll keep doing it. There are no repercussions.

I support Greggs with this, good for them. I’ve seen another store lock their fridges with bicycle locks, because theft is so bad. If the police won’t step up, what else can they do?

Sainsburys used to sell printer ink cartridges in the store. Now they sell them via Argos as many were stolen. Same for kitchen knives. Though a relative that retired from Sainsburys last year, wishes that Argos sold Jack Daniels and Smirnoff (95% of spirits stolen are those brands) and razor blades.

The store only has one pot/tube of face creams and serums which are £10+ each and only one each of the branded nicotine replacement stuff as got nicked. Shoplifters see the single pot of each line and don't bother stealing it.