Shops are becoming quite scary

[ithinkilikethislittlelife]

I am starting to become quite nervous in shops, primarily shops that sell food stuffs. Just yesterday I saw two men go through a fire door in my local supermarket that takes them straight into the car park armed with baskets of stolen items. The one basket had steak/meats and the other looked like it was all bottles of vodka. The poor staff trying to wrestle the baskets back and stop the two men from leaving was quite upsetting to witness. This was yesterday. Saturday in my local co op a chap was loitering by the alcohol section while I was shopping. Getting into our car outside I noticed him sprinting past us clutching bottles of alcohol. Me and dh see it all the time now. It’s an epidemic. And it usually seems to be men. And I’m not having it that they are stealing milk for babies or bread for their children. I always see them take alcohol. I don’t know what the answer is but yesterday I was frightened for the staff member who intervened as the one chap raised a bottle of alcohol at her and she then backed off but I totally understood her rage at trying to stop the thieves taking from her place of work. I don’t want my children to witness these thieving people and I don’t want to feel anxious just trying to go about my day and buy food!

Its usually drug addicts selling their loot for a fix. I used to work in a supermarket and the stuff was always the high value sellable stuff. Meat, cheese, coffee, washing powder/pods, alcohol.

It didnt help when police forces announced they wouldn't investigate shoplifting under £200 worth.

It was an open invitation to the thieves "come on in lads and fill yer boots"

I assume you're joking. Do you actually think it's ok for people to steal alcohol so they can "have a beer at the weekend"?
If you're serious I can only assume you're a criminal yourself.

Not really true. There's a lot of it in our small village as it's on a main A road - in the centre of a triangle between a small city and two towns. Also pretty close to the county border which is just the other side of one of the towns. Most of the shoplifting/crime is from the roads, usually dodgy vans, scrap vans, "A1 Roofer" kind of vans etc., who traverse between towns/counties - basically crossing the county border or going from one town to another after their "crime" to put distance between the scene and where they live, or more often, different county so the police (different county forces) don't put two and two together!

There was a post from the other county police force on Facebook the other day congratulating themselves on stopping/arresting a van load of people who'd openly stolen a couple of thousand pounds worth of stuff from a shop in their county, but were caught, just before they crossed the county border into our county, heading for where they lived in our nearest town. Thankfully, a passer by had seen them leave the shop with armfuls of goods and noted down their registration number and the more proactive police in the other county saw the van. The thing is that such observancies aren't automatically reported to neighbouring county police forces, so our force wouldn't have known about the van/theft unless the vehicle had been seen to be heading towards our county.

Being a rural area, there's also a lot of theft of farm equipment, which likewise is "cross county borders" with offenders from one county driving over the county border to steal stuff and then drive back again. We're in a kind of "cross point" where three counties join, so that's three different police forces, none of whom seem to have any automatic way of notifying each other of such thefts nor any sightings!

Criminals know it. Rural crime is increasing massively these days.

Last time i was in Co-op a group of 7 teenage boys from the school across the road walked in and helped themselves to lunch, they were so brazen about it. The staff say it happens every day.

Exactly this. It was scary as I found myself walking towards it and the men were shouting at the female member of staff who had her hand on one side of the basket holding all the vodka. It was just horrible and they were rotten, pigs of men and she was shook up afterwards. I thinks she acted on instinct. It wasn’t deliberate.

Yes it's an absolute nightmare in my local Co-Op I feel absolutely terrible for the people who work there.

I want to get some mince the other day for a cottage pie and they said the whole of the steak mince and other meats area had just been cleared out by a gang who'd come and taken the whole shelf into a big binbag and then run out.

Pretty much every time I go in my local shop though there is a shoplifter pegging it out the door.

This happened in my local, very small Co op while I was there with my DP and DS. We were there to buy formula, which happens to be stocked right across the wine bottles and beer fridge. I was scared to death as the security guard that’s normally posted was not there that day and the staff tried to stop the man, who threatened to hit them with a bottle (while my DP was just behind them with our baby!). Since then, I have seen two women do the same in the off-licence right next door, right in the middle of the day. In our case, there’s a significant community of people with drug addiction issues who hang around the area and obviously feel empowered to act like this since they suffer absolutely no consequences for their actions. It has however left a sour taste in my mouth since they are ransacking our local stores and now I don’t feel safe taking my baby into any of these stores.

See "not zero chance but much reduced".

In Tesco yesterday a woman had about 20 boxes of Persil in a shopping bag. Was stopped by security when she walked through the self checkouts. She screamed out that one of them had groped her vag. He hadn't - as witnessed by about 10 people. Who would want to work in retail now.

It does seem to be really common now. I never remember seeing it when I was younger or really up until the last maybe 5 years ish. We see it all of the time now, not always alcohol but random things. The small Asda round the corner from where my sister lives has pretty much anything of any value off the shelves now and has tag things where the item should be so you take the tag to the till and pay then they go get the item from out the back, everything from coffee to the refills for plug ins and alcohol is like that there now.

I see lots packages open in the supermarkets. I was struggling to find a packet with chocolate fingers in Tesco the other day that hadn’t been opened

Many of them aren't stealing to eat. They're selling it to other dodgy people for drug money.
Legalising drugs wouldn't be a bad thing.

YANBU. Just yesterday I read a story about chocolate being kept in anti-theft devices because some shops are taking such a loss through chocolate theft. It's disgusting and enraging.

I don't blame shop workers for not wanting to put themselves in harm's way, but it's demoralising for a society to see crime just allowed to happen without much of an attempt to stop it.

Sorry but it IS our money. The losses that shops suffer is then put back on the customer, over time to recoup these losses. It is all our buisiness and weshould all be pissed off at these lazy bambots who don't contribute anything positive to our society.

The answer is to live within the law.

Not saying there isn’t shoplifting-there is. Not saying it’s not awful. It is. I am saying that it’s very unlikely that you have seen repeated incidents where staff in chain shops like Co-op have confronted shop lifters. They are explicitly told not to. Which is also awful-but a necessary safety measure.

I was in Boots - nice 'village' type area... guy comes in a swipes stuff off the shelves into his open rucksack. The tiny, female pharmacist chased after him banging his arm to get him to drop the bag and shouting at him.. I did sod all (sorry to say.. I was a bit in shock). The lovely pharmacist lady said he comes in all the time... she's there on her own. No security. No cashier. So she fights him off! She's a qualified pharmacist not a bloody security guard.

How poor do you imagine my father was when he had 7 brothers and sisters in a 2 bed terrace just after the war?
No one behaved like this as it was a high trust society. That is breaking down now. I retail goods and certain areas I just can’t go to now as too much gets stolen.
It did not used to happen 10 years ago.

I mean… it’s basically legal now to steal
under a certain amounts worth ( is it 200 quid?) so that’s what happens. I live in a boring suburb and our mini supermarket gets looters regularly. The staff just go behind the Perspex screened counter and wait for them to go. They tell me the cases never make it to court.
Absolute madness.
Traffic crime doesn’t seem to get punished either. We regularly have people bombing down the roads at 60 mph in a 30 zone, plus county lines gangs in packs on electric bikes. You rarely see police.

Several years ago i was talking to the staff member who was restocking the chocolate aisle She lifted a cardboard box off the palette, and took out a Bourneville bar that had already been opened, I asked how has that happened and she said, its the drivers, we cant really do anything about it

If drugs were legalised would it make them cheaper and more accessible to people with no money ?

Or would they be able to go straight into the shops and nick the drugs instead of the food ?

From what I can tell the only way to stop people who want drugs who have no money from stealing is to give them free drugs, which is a bit different from legalising them.

I was in the co-op last summer in the queue when a man started shouting about a man that had walked in picked up goods and walked out! He was shouting why are we all queuing to pay when that man just walked in and took what he wanted without paying and staff apparently saw it and didn’t challenge him…absolutely disgusting that people think they have the right to walk in and take what they want without consequences

I saw a video online of some fridges that sell drinks out on the street in China. You just open the door, take what you want, and scan a QR code to pay. The entire system is built on trust - that you really will pay for what you take. And people do actually follow the rules.

Anyway, feeling curious I googled what the law says about shoplifting in China. For low value items (anything less than about £100), you don't get arrested for your first offence. You might have a chat with a police officer, and pay what you owe. It's only by the time you have a third offence that you get an actual punishment - usually a fine or prison time. Obviously, if the value of the item you're stealing us expensive, then the punishment is much more severe and can be up to 5 years in prison. But overall it seems to be an effective deterrent. I think the only way to stop people stealing in the UK so brazenly, is to increase the punishment. Otherwise, it will just keep happening.

Interestingly - the more that shops anticipate theft (eg, locking high value items away etc), the more likely it is that people will try to steal them. Apparently it creates a psychological effect that actually encourages people to commit the crime. Whereas, in more trusting societies (such as in China), because the assumption is that people won't steal things.. they just.. don't. I found that pretty interesting! 😅

No, prison time. Thinking it is acceptable to steal is why we are in this mess.

If you are hard up you eat potatoes, rice and pasta. They are still cheap.

You are missing my point.

The shop lifter where I am are targeting the staff. There have been incidents which do not involve shoplifting.

The issue locally is partly about shoplifting but the greater issue is more general antisocial behaviour.

There have been dispersal orders issued on numerous occasions over the last couple of years for the area outside the shop.

Again I stress it's not just about shoplifting.