It Begins… NYC’s Grocery Stores Close Over Theft

now nearly all grocers in New York City say they have been victims of shoplifting this year alone and 60% of those stores say they've been burglarized every single day of the week this year so the city's falling to a point where if there's something on a shelf anything it is a target for thieves who've Now set their sights on our food supply robbing local businesses until they shut down and the city is powerless to stop this from happening for some reason as we all know retail theft rings are an ongoing problem for bodegas grocery stores mom and pop businesses in both common and luxury retail chains I think a lot of people would be surprised that it's almost every single day coffee cheese shrimp nothing is safe are you concerned sometimes for your safety absolutely retailer is just open game walk away with anything simple shoplifting really graduated to organize sophisticated crimes it's like the Wild Wild West out there shoplifting is a misdemeanor Merchants want increased penalties shoplifters which Governor Kathy hokel is going after introducing a $45 million initiative to drive down retail theft the smash and grab efforts they go in and swipe everything off the shelves often times they're loading into a stolen vehicle meanwhile here in New York City it's reported that retailers lost close to $4.5 billion dollar last year we are all victims when retail fact happens it drives up the cost of things and it also creates this environment where people are hesitant so almost 100% of grocery stores have been shoplifted recently but nobody's talking about how New York City's latest plan to stop shoplifting won't actually punish the people who shoplift instead it's only aimed at punishing people who become violent while shoplifting which means peaceful shoplifting can continue surging out of control with organized theft Rings running full-time businesses not just targeting retailers like Macy's now they'll Rob your local grocery store and offload store and oranges at of Bodega or a curbside produce truck because even those stealing physical merchandise like a North Face jacket will make you more money those are now chained to the stores that sell them so they're harder to make off with but the real reason shoplifting continues to Surge to levels we've never seen before is because it's still possible in this city to steal under $1,000 worth of stuff and not go to jail which means any Thief can start their own business tomorrow selling products they got for free effectively closing down the stores they steal from who then have to compete with their own stolen merchandise and what's truly insane is how thieves are now literally threatening the food supply of New York City and if this continues it could make things tougher for some of the city's neediest residents when the grocery stores in bodas they rely on shut down for good Ahmed is owner of stop one Deli here on Gun Hill Road for 30 years now he says they are robbed on a regular basis and fear ful of doing anything about it are you concerned sometimes for your safety absolutely for my safety the safety minutes away also so first it was Macy's then it was Walgreens now it's the small mom and pop independent stores that sell food who are now being targeted which makes sense because once you put the big chains out of business all you've got left are the local businesses and if a big drugstore like this can't figure out how to secure its products what chance does your local Bodega or grocery store have most of what they sell can't even be locked up behind the aggressive plexiglass we see everywhere in this city because they sell food because they sell beverages most of what they have cannot be chained behind something and when you combine that with insanely high rent for what in most cases is a very tiny little storefront you've got a situation where these businesses are not exactly making millions and that doesn't leave a lot of extra money lying around for security guards but just as your local bodegas are getting looted into Oblivion the same thing is happening at your local grocery stores and when one of these places shuts down it could take the rest of the neighborhood with it minutes away also is car colado 30-year resident 15 years as the manager at this fine Fair on White Plains Road sending a surveillance video after surveillance video while describing a new climate of emboldened shoplifters they feel like the law protects them like there are no consequences totally emboldened so now to understand how shoplifting is never a victimless crime this grocery store it's the only one in the area everybody living around here this is the store that they shop at if it's gone where are they going to go and even if the store itself doesn't close as they deal with theft they have to raise their prices because if half the stuff on the Shelf gets stolen the other half has to cost 100% more for them to make the same amount of money and higher prices hurt legitimate customers who obey the law and are just trying to make it in one of the most expensive cities in the country which essentially means that shoplifting is a tax on the rest of society and the more it continues the more everyone has to pay for the same stuff but eventually prices rise to a point where nobody can afford what the store sells and when that happens the store has to shut down it can no longer stay open and operate because its prices are too high and if it brings them down they won't be able to pay their expenses and make a living and customers that might be used to shopping at a little place like this they don't have unlimited money at a certain point it will be cheaper to take the subway and waste your time traveling to another part of town that has another store that hasn't been looted to a point where its prices are so high nobody can shop there on top of that the majority of this thievery it's not just one person stealing a loaf of bread no these are organized retail gangs that make a living off stolen products and it's so bad and so prevalent you've got entire swaths of town that now resemble ghost towns in New York City of all places in the New York Post interviewed several Delian grocery managers who all said when they saw someone stealing who was obviously in need they did not care which means although greed does have a lot to do with why once profitable businesses are shutting down it's not due to the greed of the business owners instead it's the greed of the shoplifters totally un Bolden so now they they they take it an extra step now they they want to fight us they constantly uh it's it's it's often a battle shoplifters have grown so bold their illegal business is so profitable they now feel entitled to the very inventory they never paid for in the first place and this is why physical altercations inside these stores are now so common and what that's doing is it's turning the local places who are just trying to survive into complete War zones and the sad thing is nobody working at these local businesses gets paid enough money to put their life on the line for a hat or an apple or an orange for that matter now the governor's new plan to stop shoplifting only increases penalties for shoplifters who also become violent while they are stealing things from a store which means that if shoplifters go into a store and they're on their best behavior this new plan won't offer them any new consequences for their behavior and since the police are powerless to stop these criminals you've now got a situation where thieves make a living off the backs of the innocent in more ways than one this Bravo Supermarket in the Bronx is clean and feeds the neighborhood but they're also hemorrhaging between1 and $2,000 a month from theft shoplifting is bad it's terrible coffee cheese shrimp nothing is safe several months ago Jose says a woman came in with a baby stroller filled it with these logs of Sal so I bought this massive brick of Bello coffee on Amazon because this was the cheapest I could find these Bello coffees in and it even looks like it came from a legitimate distributor it's shrink wrapped it's got the cardboard under it this looks pretty legit but these little bricks are the same ones that get sold at the supermarket what if these are stolen and they were placed inside this package I've got no way of knowing that professional thieves are really good now they will steal things individually and repackage them sell them online and all this packaging and stuff that you need to make your product a bundle of 12 packages of espresso is all readily obtainable this is already a huge problem with other sorts of retail theft clothing Electronics stuff like that but food the same thing's possible if you've got stuff like this that's non perishable and what's insane is the reason all of us are shopping online in the first place is because we're looking for a deal we're looking to save money and online you can do it and we think oh that's just because it's online it's because there's not an actual store that has to pay things like rent and you know something that is partially true but the store that you bought it from they also don't have to pay for things like inventory because the goods are stolen and it's ridiculous to think that the entire shoplifting industrial complex operating in this city happens because legitimate people are also the victims of it we don't understand that we're buying the things that are closing our own stores and stores like this aren't shut down because Robin Hood was trying to feed the poor by stealing from the Rich you've literally got people raiding local businesses stealing as much as they can in a half an hour and since all this inventory cost the thieves absolutely nothing you've got a pure profit business and if the criminals get arrested since they don't go to jail if it's under $11,000 they can get right back out they don't even miss work and although these theft operations might enrich the people at the top a lot of the people at the bottom who are doing the actual stealing these are folks who are being exploited people suffering from addiction from homelessness Crooks convince them they can earn quick cash today by bringing a trash bag full of beauty supplies detergent or espresso back to a warehouse and without real help from police and from a justice system that cares about businesses like this there's no way it stands a chance against an operation like that and think about a grocery store losing $2,000 a month just from shoplifting if your business is already struggling because the rent's too high and because your taxes and other fees just for operating or through the roof a crime ridden environment could be the final straw and your business could make the unfortunate decision to close up shop and who's the winner in a situation like that certainly not the business owner because now they're out of a job certainly not everybody who lives around here because now they're out of stores to shop at and you know what it's not even the criminals who do the actual stealing because eventually the store is going to be gone and they're not going to be able to buy any food either it's completely destructive is this a total nightmare absolutely and that's why the government is moving forward with this plan to punish violent shoplifters it's better than nothing but the real question is why is it taking the government so long to act on this why have so many stores had to close down people lose their jobs customers lose their shopping centers sadly it's because the people running New York don't see shoplifting as that big of a deal [Music] [Music] apparently a card or cash uh card you ever have people come in here and try to steal stuff um yeah do you think there's a store in New York City that's never been shoplifted from that's hard that's a hard one cuz it's like it's so many people in this city yeah it's so many people in this city the lawlessness the chaos that is going on in our stores in our communities all over the state of New York it must stop Governor hokel now pledging $25 million for a dedicated retail theft unit within the state police 15 million for district attorneys and 5 million to help businesses with security the question tonight will that actually protect Merchants there so here's some good news from the governor 45 million that's a lot of money but unfortunately it won't all go to purposes that people think are going to have an effect but it's also worth noting that it's not the governor's fault or the mayor's fault that we have a shoplifting problem in this state after all they didn't write the laws that have led us to the place we're at today and to a certain extent their tools for dealing with an out-of-control crime crisis are somewhat limited so first up we've got $25 million for the police who can arrest people who then get released because the laws here don't jail people for stealing now yes the state police they're the ones who bust a lot of these BigTime retail theft rings and leaders of those operations are responsible for way more than $11,000 worth of theft and the leaders might get locked up but the lowlevel criminals who are still out there robbing these stores shutting them down they're still walking the Earth there's also $15 million set aside for district attorneys to go after these criminals but the whole problem in New York City is that Progressive laws that protect criminals instead of punishing them those laws exist because people believe in them judges believe in them District Attorneys even believe in them so the people that are supposed to prosecute the criminals end up feeling bad for them sympathetic towards them and may not be asking for the harshest penalties they could which might actually land somebody behind bars but the last $5 million this could actually do something because it has to do with grants related to instore security for local businesses who need it the most for example things like security guards security cameras these could help in discouraging crime at the source but that brings up an interesting question about all this if a $5 million Grant to business is that's almost like an admission that things are happening in the business that the city's not able to stop and the business needs more resources to deal with it themselves so why not give businesses the whole 35 million at the end of the day if even bananas are being stolen and there's nothing the police can do about it why not give businesses the resources to tackle this problem on their own but money for businesses that's definitely better than what other local leaders here have tried to come up with one local leader wants to start taxing landlords who have vacant storefronts now think about that for a second if the store closed and left because they weren't making enough money to pay the rent if the land has to take less rent they're essentially subsidizing the activities of shoplifters who lowered that business's margins through theft to cause them to shut down in the first place but okay there's a new plan on the table how long is it going to take to work and will it save businesses from shutting down completely and what do local business owners think about this they're releasing repeat criminals crime hurts us indeed crime hurts all of us now hok's proposal is actually for next year's fiscal budget oh okay okay so it's at least one year away meanwhile criminals are still going to walk around doing what they've always done and even if businesses do hire guard dogs and put up cameras and install security apparatuses what does anyone think the result of that is actually going to be when there is a legal system and a justice system on the other end of all that security footage that isn't actually going to punish anybody because at the end of the day the reason we've got such a problem with repeat offenders is because the first time offenders were never punished in the first place and what's truly fascinating about this new push to try and Stamp Out crime is it comes after an effort that started a year ago to try and expand the number of food related businesses in areas that are lacking and if you're not sure how you could have no grocery store in an area with lots of people then you haven't been paying attention to this video his new business has opened as part of the New York City program called Fresh the program offers zoning and tax benefits for grocery store owners to open in areas that the city says have limited access so grocery stores have been struggling for a long time we know this and a year ago the city admitted that hey these stores they don't have enough money to operate for some reason which we can't seem to identify stores lose money they close they leave and people have nowhere to buy food and obviously last year's program to try and expand stores by giving them discounts and not admitting the whole reason why stores have trouble staying open has missed the mark completely and here we are a year later with those same types of stores having an even tougher time trying to make it in New York's crime ridden environment and you know something it's really hard to have a crime-free environment when the people who are supposed to enforce the laws regarding crime view all criminals as victims for example some schools of thought see criminals as victims of a society that has been unfair to them in some manner which gives them permission to victimize store owners who are obviously wealthier and better off than they are while at the exact same time those business owners are seen as victims of the landlords who they rent from who charge so much that they have to shut down and think for a moment about how different New York City would be if we lived in a place where when criminals did something wrong they lost their freedom they were not allowed to roam the streets they were not allowed to go back home and sleep at night and think about what crimes they were going to commit the next day you would probably have zero retail theft Rings operating if all of the criminals who were doing the actual stealing were behind bars if these crime kingpins who were selling on every single website can't find workers they're going to have to shut down not the stores they steal from and in a world where everyone who does something wrong is actually a victim of somebody else who deserves it you don't actually have any criminals do you is that the right attitude is it New York City's attitude what should we do here to stop this out of control peaceful shoplifting epidemic let me know thank you for watching I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Cash Jordan

Views: 997,343

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Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024