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 did see our M&S security guard wrestling with a shoplifter a few weeks ago. I think he's an ex Ghurka, not to be messed with. The bloke had tried to nick a chicken.

The shoplifter did end up on the "in the courts" page in our gazette, so he did get done for it. Turned out he'd been on a bit of a spree that day.

I never see the police in our town centre tbh. There aren't enough of them on the ground these days.

Why is this “suddenly” happening so often though? It wasn’t happening 20 years ago

How long before Greggs is Argos-ified.

Social media is reinforcing that there’s zero downside to petty theft nowadays, so more people know they can get away with it.

Yes I’ve been in a Greggs and seen this happen - it’s horrible, the staff said it just happens all the time and they have to just let it happen- what has this country become, it’s sickening

They always ask if you have the app when you go in now. They would lose a lot of passing trade if they went over completely to using the app to order, though, as they rely on a high volume of customers generally spending under a tenner in one go and that will include infrequent customers who cba with an app for the once a month or less that they might want to grab a cheese savoury stottie and steak bake.

The one in Brighton gets hit multiple times a day, mostly homeless and junkies. I go in there every Saturday for my breakfast and guarantee someone will just walk in grab stuff and walk out. I see it whilst going by on the bus too…

The woman I saw today took cheese

It's not just Greggs for me it's the entitlement of I can have what I want and nobody is going to stop me.
See it all the time in our city centre little neds balaclavaed up and creating mayhem with antisocial behaviour.
The stupid fuckers trying to emulate being roadmen dressed in black terrorising vulnerable people IE older people/young mums with kids.
The police need to get in control of what's happening in our country.
Prosecute the shoplifting, graffiti etc before the little louts move on to the serious stuff.

I used to work in a co-op and I’d say cheese was one of the most stolen items.

Our local Aldi have had security stickers on the blocks of cheese. There’s also a security guard on each aisle.

DH was in Tesco (central London) recently and a couple came in, took 4 bottles of wine and walked out. The cashier said they come in quite frequently, and the shop staff can't stop them.

I worked in a DIY store in the early 90s and we had shoplifting gangs regularly take trolley loads of high value stuff away. We got to know them by sight and got a fiver (!) if we spotted them in store and reported it to management.

Local police advice then was not to challenge them when leaving the store with goods (they were known to be violent) and instead get a description and try and note down what they'd taken and let them know.

(Pre- phone, that meant someone from the checkouts running down the road at a safe distance writing notes on a bit of paper rather than a taking a photo or video!)

The police would wait for a few reports to come in and, based on descriptions, raid a few known properties and make arrests then. None of this type of shoplifting is new.

However, shops only have themselves to blame for a lot of the levels of current casual shoplifting.

If you try and run a store with a skeleton staff because you're making everyone ring up their own shopping to maximise your profits , I would say it's quite clear what will happen.

If you demonstrate you don't value your stock by not investing in staff to safeguard it, don't be surprised when the general public don't either.

It is sad, sign of the times because the low level ASBO like behaviour was ignored, policing resources depleted. Now we are living in an age where it is becoming the land of the selfish. I want it, I take it and I expect to have no consequences.

It is not just theft but queuing, phones on speaker, music blasting in cars, cars being driven at speed through residential areas. The list goes on and on.

Even when buying paracetamol in the supermarket, I saw a couple of boxes where they were opened. Opened them myself and noticed the packs had one sheet missing or was empty. These were the supermarket own at 40p a pack!

UK is the only country in Europe where can buy painkillers on the shop floor like that. Others, based on the countries I have visited, only can buy at pharmacies and some are only OTC too.

Tesco Express and Co-op have branded jars of coffee security tagged. The former had the bottle security netting and tag on it.

Yes, always some idiots out to ruin things.

20+ years ago, there was a genuine risk of being caught, the police bothering to turn up to arrest you and the courts bothering to prosecute you. THAT's the difference. It's now well known that the police won't bother with small values (apparently now publicised £300 threshold!). Shop staff aren't going to risk trying to stop someone when they know the police won't bother turning out if they do.

Without any deterrent/punishment, more and more people will commit crimes. Isn't that blindingly obvious to the politicians, police chiefs, court chiefs, etc., yet they carry on allowing "low level" crime, and so the country is getting more and more lawless.

The Elephant in the room needs addressed , the stealing just a symptom of their lack of morals but politicians too scared of the cancel culture of wokeness to mention it.

There is also a problem with places like Screwfix with an Argos style till. People buy tools etc and take out parts and return them. It is quite a problem.

I don’t see a problem with everything being behind the counter. I often buy food from local businesses and everything is behind the counter, only the staff have access to it. You just ask for what you want. In these establishments the sandwiches are made fresh to order which I prefer. Nobody can touch or steal the goods.

Goodness, I guess it’s good to see companies being a bit more protective of their employees. When I worked in Aldi in the oughties we were expected to challenge and run after shoplifters.

However, shops only have themselves to blame for a lot of the levels of current casual shoplifting.
If you try and run a store with a skeleton staff because you're making everyone ring up their own shopping to maximise your profits , I would say it's quite clear what will happen.

The thing with supermarkets, based on my experience shopping and what friends/family who work in them told me. More items are security tagged and those that were security tagged, have more sophisticated tagging on them. The extra costs incurred from buying these, plus more shrinkage - the gap between actual inventory and computer figures - one of the biggest causes is lost due to theft, is costing the supermarket chains money (there are other causes of shrinkage). Probably more money than getting more staff in.

My local boots removes all perfumes from display. The boxes are all empty. They even have to chain down the very few tester perfumes they have now. One time you could test any perfume, nobody stole them.
I’ve seen the low life in there stealing. It seems to have calmed down now that the expensive items have all been removed.

@TowerOfWashing

If you try and run a store with a skeleton staff because you're making everyone ring up their own shopping to maximise your profits , I would say it's quite clear what will happen.

It's not just "self service" stores though. Places like Greggs have plenty of staff, and don't have self service tills (not the ones I use anyway).

Our tiny privately owned village pie shop/bakery don't have self service and couldn't fit more than two staff (owners) behind the counter. They've had to put the drinks fridge and crisps racks because the counter because of theft.

How many dedicated security staff (because that's what is needed) can shops afford to pay for, just to stand and guard the doors. Even the smallest shop would need two for their own protection and to be useful.

We're really heading for shop counters to be further forward towards the entry/exit doors, bigger and having more stuff behind counters for the staff to get. Like a couple of people upthread have said, we're going backwards because that's how it used to be.

Probably also go back to having tills by the doors (again as they always used to be) rather than at the backs of shops so that customers (and thieves) have to physically go right past the staff before leaving the shop.

It really isn't all about self service tills. In fact if you have self service tills, in theory you have more staff available for the shop floor to watch for shoplifting as a deterrent.

@Beon

Probably more money than getting more staff in.

Pointless getting more staff in if they can't do anything for the more serious shoplifters who are blatant and potentially willing to use violence to leave if challenged, especially when they know the police won't bother with shoplifting and will only come out (maybe) if the shoplifter actually assaults the shop worker.

But I suppose more staff may help prevent some occasional theft from potential shoplifters who aren't quite so blatant about it.

But when a group go into a shop purposely to blatantly steal stuff, they're really not going to be put off by a couple of extra staff on the shop floor or a security guard at the door.