A California city is cracking down on shoplifters with a first-of-its-kind rule dramatically restricting self-checkouts.
Long Beach passed the “Safe Stores are Staffed Stores” in September, which requires large grocery stores and pharmacies to have at least one staff member monitoring every three self-checkout stations, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Many stores say they’ve been forced to simply shut down self-checkouts altogether because they can’t hire the staff to meet the new rules.
“We are currently unable to operate our self-checkout lanes,” read a recently posted sign sign at a downtown Long Beach supermarket, blaming “a new City of Long Beach ordinance.”
The city — located on the Pacific coast just south of Los Angeles — is one of countless across the US that has seen an enormous spike in shoplifting since the 2020 pandemic, with the The National Retail Federation reporting a staggering 93% increase from 2019 to 2023.
And those are just the numbers that are known — the Long Branch ordinance described shoplifting as extremely common and severely underreported, adding that such crime made retail work “hostile and unsafe.”
Stores are also required to limit customers to buying 15 items per self-checkout kiosk under the new rules.
The ordinance is intended to “advance public safety and prevent retail theft,” according to its own language, and some local union reps think it will do just that.
“The checkers and the cashiers are on the front lines of this,” Matt Bell, secretary treasurer of the grocery worker union UFCW 324 told the LA Times.
“It really is necessary to provide them safety and security and better staffing,” he added.
And a nearby Target wasn’t keeping up — with just one worker recently posted for its five self-checkout booths, the LA Times reported.
Some customers have also grumbled that the law has done little more than slow things down when they go shopping.
“All the stores are the same now, they have it closed,” shopper Francilla Isaac told the outlet.
The ordinance is the first of its kind to be mandated at a city level across the country.
Stores have generally taken measures into their own hands, with the sight of goods locked up behind plastic barriers becoming commonplace across the country in recent years.
Attacks on employees attempting to stop shoplifters have even become more common — with a 30-year-old Family Dollar worker winding up stabbed in Brooklyn as recently as Sunday, and a Texas CVS security guard fatally shot earlier this year.
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