Yup , cave to the dirt bags of this world , seems like a trend
Home Depot selling power tools that won't work unless they're activated at a register
- Thread starter y_p_w
- Start date
That’s more or less in motion now. In the future, Amazon will be the primary retailer for those in the upper socioeconomic tiers(the Whole Foods buyout and Amazon’s tendency to put a Four Star/Amazon Books by a high-end retail store is a good example). Walmart and the dollar stores/Dollar General/Big Lots/etc will fight for the scraps, and Costco will be seen as a “affordable luxury” buyer’s club, a sort-of “co-op” like REI but not operating in the benefit of their stakeholders like Return Everything Immediately does. Home Depot and Lowe’s will try to make life miserable for the honest(and Ace will capitalize on that). In places that are becoming homogeneous and gentrified, bet on niche retailers becoming localized but “exclusive”.
They don't have to be "aggressively" pursued, to put someone on the case, which they do, and put some pictures out there to wait and see if the public makes an ID. If/when that happens (which it does quite often) they do act on that lead.
What is this "risky" bit? Risky to do their job? Not pointless at all, to make people responsible for their actions. The world becomes a horrible place if we don't hold people accountable. Even if a suspect is not convicted, having to face the possibility of it is far more of a deterrent than nothing.
Seems like you live in a terrible area and should move to a better one, better BECAUSE they enforce the laws instead of letting it get this bad! All you're really telling is us the citizens in the area need to be more aware of the consequences of who they elect into government positions.
I agree, but this is also why states set a felony theft amount, and there are multiple different, possible charges from use of a deadly weapon, but ultimately I very much want all (except few, ridiculously antiquated exceptions) laws enforced, and then if that region thinks a law should not be enforced, to repeal it. never "this is against the law but we're just going to let it slide" or slap on the wrist for (random excuse) reason. That's the role of a jury, or judge, not police.
Last edited:
You're lecturing the wrong person. I'm not claiming I think they should not be pursued. But if you've paid any attention to the national news, a white cop just went to prison for the drug overdose death of a black man being detained on suspicion of passing a forged $20 bill. Cops, around the nation, face extreme scrutiny and danger pursuing criminals, especially if there's a racial element. It is not at all surprising when cops are simply no longer willing to do so for anything other than a violent crime or serious crime in progress. Tracking down a $100 skill saw from a Home Depot theft would not make any list of importance.
No, this isn't the added danger inherent to the job they signed up for. It's the back-stabbing scrutiny from their own District Attorney, from the media, from someone with a cellphone video cleverly edited, from not having support from the community they have protected for 10 years, and so forth... on top of the dangerous unpredictable animals they pursue.
Are you willing to risk YOUR life, YOUR liberty, to chase down some $100 saw from Walmart, that's already covered under insurance policies and absorbed as write-offs or passed on as a penny increase to consumers? I'm not. And many jurisdictions see that lots of cops are not taking unnecessary calls and risks as we sink into anarchy.
News articles, around the nation, including Manhatten and Hollywood, and other major metro areas with huge populations, are all-but endorsing property thefts by decriminalizing them. Heck, in Seattle it's open-season on shoplifting, and even city block heists.
There's always prosecutorial discretion for any number of reasons. Our legal system, jails, and prison system simply can't handle a "throw away the keys" approach to crime. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be great to just put people away as a deterrence but as a practical matter that's never going to happen where there are maximum convictions/sentences. The costs would be through the roof.
I guess that's why there's a tougher stand taken on crimes where the safety of others is threatened as opposed to relatively low-level property crimes.
Until the punishment meets or exceeds the crime, this will continue, and most likely get worse.
There's a guy on the street trying to take photo of a cat converter thief of his car and got shot by the thief. Do you think someone will shot a store employee tries to take a photo of someone "pursuing"?
In the end you have to get security camera on 247 to deter them, but then you will see Mr alarmguy or some cranky people saying they ain't going to be recorded and tries to do something crazy.
Throughout history, it is usually a fuzzy line between "it is not worth pursuing" and "it must be punished harshly to make an example".
Which is why in the end we end up with a lot of zoning laws, a lot of gated community, school district, protest about subway extension into some high value suburb, etc. It is far cheaper to pay for your own private road and infrastructure maintenance in an HOA if you can keep the trouble makers out, than to pay to arrest them and jail them. A combination of gated community and not spending a lot to pursue and jail people is in the end, a much cheaper solution than hiring a lot of cops and jailing a lot of criminals.
I am not sure if mail order is the cheaper way to prevent thieves, they are actually easier target and delivery is not always cheaper than real estate to run a store, but I can definitely see more and more stores will be specialized and sell online to get the scale they need for a niche, that local stores like Home Depot, Target, Walmart, etc cannot compete.
Whole Food is a complete mess IMO. The founder / owner screw up pretty bad on the perishable rotting on the shelf / empty shelf restock speed. I don't think their quality is that impressive relative to what other stores can do (i.e. Costco IMO has better quality, Trader Joe's have way better price, Safeway usually can match them, Asian stores almost always have better exotic stuff, and Mexican stores are always better stocked on the shelves and of course usually better prices). I would say Whole Food's saving grace is the deli, it is an ok alternative to restaurant and not as "dry out" as Safeway's.
I do think eventually we will have another wave of retail evolution if someone figure out how to do drone delivery cost effectively. Driver labor is expensive and if they can have a self driving golf cart going around dropping packages in a "locker" in front of your house, that only you can unlock with your phone, then it would be the end of non refrigerated retail stores.
Mail order including eBay and various marketplaces are part of where all this shoplifted stuff is being sold. You know - if it's too good to be true, it probably is. The irony is that some of this stuff is even sold by Amazon in brick and mortar stores, like the 4-Star stores they have in Corte Madera, Berkeley, and Burlingame. Not sure why they haven't made it to the South Bay or San Francisco yet.
Criminals turn to online marketplaces to sell stolen merchandise
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE) – Online bargain hunters beware: You may be getting more than you bargained for. If you shop online, like many people, you might be surprised to learn that the ho…
www.fox46.com
Stolen goods are being sold on Amazon, even goods stolen from Amazon themselves
Big retailers have been bleeding inventory due to theft since the pandemic started, and now they are fighting back tooth and nail, including by putting pressure on Amazon itself.
thepostmillennial.com
I almost never buy anything at Whole Foods. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I live near Berkeley and have access to the rather legendary Berkeley Bowl markets, what started off at the location of a former bowling alley. That place is just crazy good with quality and especially the prices. It just shows that people in an affluent area still want to save money.
HOME | Berkeley Bowl
www.berkeleybowl.com
The problem with punishment today is we're worried too much about the perp, and we forget about the victim. It has now gotten to the point we have begun to glamorize these POS's. (The whole George Floyd thing is a perfect example). It's now escalated to the point where the cop becomes the perpetrator, and the perpetrator is now the victim.
This is a big contributor to all of this, because society in general, (along with many city counsels), are all playing along to this idiotic nonsense. Fear of punishment has to exist for any type of law enforcement to be effective. When we were kids we respected the cops out of fear. Today they curse them. Taunt them. And throw things at them.
Because for the most part they know nothing will happen to them. "Back in the day", if you threw water on a cop, you would get your ass kicked but good. And when your parents found out what you did, the old man would kick it again..... Now the parents sue instead. This simply emboldens more of the same behavior.
All because society has been so successful at reversing this whole thing, and are now making law enforcement the bad guy. This is nothing but a breakdown of society in general. And it's going to get a hell of a lot worse, before it gets any better.... If it ever does.
Last edited:
You cannot have this type of blatant disrespect of law enforcement, then turn right around and expect to have that same law enforcement be effective in most ANY capacity.
Sadly, much the same has happened to teachers in public schools across the country. There is simply no longer ANY discipline for these kind of actions. This type of behavior didn't exist just 20 years ago without SEVERE consequences. And then we wonder why shoplifting is up across the country? Seriously?
Sadly, much the same has happened to teachers in public schools across the country. There is simply no longer ANY discipline for these kind of actions. This type of behavior didn't exist just 20 years ago without SEVERE consequences. And then we wonder why shoplifting is up across the country? Seriously?
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2021
- Messages
- 4,668
Your sentiments are almost exact to mine, there is minimal receipt checking, it seems like the common courtesy thing to do if they ask, I make sure they know I'm annoyed, not being nasty just letting it be known, but they seem to have properly trained LPs, at least at Walmart they seem to.. they don't ask most people, and they create lines walking out the door there are so many people coming in and out. I also, like you, resent the implication that you are stealing when the whole store is on video, including the register... you can usually tell who is stealing.
I agree that they probably have methods to deter theft that they could employ that they seem to not want to, I again go to LP employees watching the video of the store, they wait at the door if they observe someone shoplifting, maybe they forward that video with perhaps a license plate to law enforcement if it is a smash and grab, nothing is for certain, but it is always pleasant when they let the paying customer out of their store unharrassed and unimpeded. It is the timid and approachable customers they are more likely they ask to waste their time.
Put video on the high-dollar items, maybe leave an empty box so an employee has to get it, there are ways.
Your 100% correct.
This is the rot of society when people think its not worth it to charge someone with a crime and label at as costly. It is called quality of life issues.
in the 60' and 70's New York City was much like current day CA cities, tent city sewers. The people elected a former FBI official call Rudolf Giuliani on a low, order and quality of life platform.
He himself and with the police, turned New York City into a Disney Land. I was there, I saw it.
No more street beggars, no panhandlers, no camping out in tents, Penn and Grand Central Station even turned into Disney Land, vastly different. No crime was overlooked, NONE, every law on the books enforced.
Squeege men were arrested for cleaning car windows when people were stuck in traffic (oh my god I still remember the liberals going nuts of that) , they would spit on cars if you didnt give them money.
No more of that, Giuliani had the support of the voters, now the progressives are back because the young generation thought NYC was always a Disney Land, like current CA mentality. Voters dont know what happens when law are not enforced. People are waking up REAL QUICKLY, dont see many defund the police anymore do you? AND NY City turning into a dump again, just last week, Long Island (where I grew up) politicians went into Penn Station and/or Grand Central Station.
Long Islanders fearful for their lives again taking the trains into the city, years of the now recently departed mayor who allowed the homeless to once again take over the stations, crime through the roof, crazies everywhere, no respect for law and order, low level crimes ignored over and over, even to repeat offenders... Record numbers of police officers resigning and retiring early.
Really? All anyone has to do is look in the mirror and their voting habits. Stop with the excuses, too expensive to enforce the law? That is the problem with people who says that, the particular crime doesnt affect them or their quality of life its ok, right?
)The thinking is backwards in many of these posts. Not enforce the law? Too Costly? That is backwards, the highest cost is in cities and states where the laws are not enforced. There is no deterrent, criminals feel free to do as they choose, they become more brazen. The cost of doing business greatly increases, taxes increase, businesses and middle income people move away, the area turns into a urban sewer controlled by thugs, fearless of the police.
In areas where crimes are fully enforced, its nipped in the butt from the start, there are WAY less criminals around, respect for the law rules and the community thrives instead of declines. My god, I cant believe people think otherwise BUT this is why we have these issues, because they vote for people who allow this behavior. Your either a man who stands up for law and order or a mouse who tolerates crime and disorder on the false belief that its too costly to control, so let the criminals run free.
SO ends my sermon for the day (and I mean it *LOL*)
Last edited:
Remember not to be selective when you mention the good ole days. Mafia ran the NYC till the 80s even when cops were "respected" back then. It is not just the US either, and cops have been getting bribes back in the days as well from criminal orgs. Anyways, human tends to swing from one extreme to another, and hippies eventually grew into the conservatives today, not just the boomers but every single generation as they age.
Heck, even Confucious were complaining thousands of years back that people weren't behaving like the good ole days, so yeah, we have been yelling get off my lawn since ..... thousands of years ago.
The cost part is real though, pretty much the only way to manage crime in a low cost way is 1) fence them off and keep the nice part nice and the poor part poor, and 2) mass execution of the trouble makers (petty theft, drug addicts, protesters, freedom lovers, etc). 2) is off the table because we are accusing other nations (dictators, warlords, enemy states) for doing that. 1) is out of the question as we now have more middle class voters rising up from lower caste than nobles inheriting the titles from their parents and religious orgs.
So, move to a gated community and vote for no spending on law enforcement outside their gated community? That's the cheapest compromise.
That's because wisdom comes with age. It's not something you are born with. Like most skills in life, it has to be developed over time.... Even Confucius didn't pop from the womb with all of that brilliance. It was learned through experience.
Your 100% correct.
This is the rot of society when people think its not worth it to charge someone with a crime and label at as costly. It is called quality of life issues.
in the 60' and 70's New York City was much like current day CA cities, tent city sewers. The people elected a former FBI official call Rudolf Giuliani on a low, order and quality of life platform.
He himself and with the police, turned New York City into a Disney Land. I was there, I saw it.
No more street beggars, no panhandlers, no camping out in tents, Penn and Grand Central Station even turned into Disney Land, vastly different. No crime was overlooked, NONE, every law on the books enforced.
Squeege men were arrested for cleaning car windows when people were stuck in traffic (oh my god I still remember the liberals going nuts of that) , they would spit on cars if you didnt give them money.
No more of that, Giuliani had the support of the voters, now the progressives are back because the young generation thought NYC was always a Disney Land, like current CA mentality. Voters dont know what happens when law are not enforced. People are waking up REAL QUICKLY, dont see many defund the police anymore do you? AND NY City turning into a dump again, just last week, Long Island (where I grew up) politicians went into Penn Station and/or Grand Central Station.
Long Islanders fearful for their lives again taking the trains into the city, years of the now recently departed mayor who allowed the homeless to once again take over the stations, crime through the roof, crazies everywhere, no respect for law and order, low level crimes ignored over and over, even to repeat offenders... Record numbers of police officers resigning and retiring early.
Really? All anyone has to do is look in the mirror and their voting habits. Stop with the excuses, too expensive to enforce the law? That is the problem with people who says that, the particular crime doesnt affect them or their quality of life its ok, right?
The thinking is backwards in many of these posts. Not enforce the law? Too Costly? That is backwards, the highest cost is in cities and states where the laws are not enforced. There is no deterrent, criminals feel free to do as they choose, they become more brazen. The cost of doing business greatly increases, taxes increase, businesses and middle income people move away, the area turns into a urban sewer controlled by thugs, fearless of the police.
In areas where crimes are fully enforced, its nipped in the butt from the start, there are WAY less criminals around, respect for the law rules and the community thrives instead of declines. My god, I cant believe people think otherwise BUT this is why we have these issues, because they vote for people who allow this behavior. Your either a man who stands up for law and order or a mouse who tolerates crime and disorder on the false belief that its too costly to control, so let the criminals run free.
SO ends my sermon for the day (and I mean it *LOL*)
Look at what the Rico law did: they target the finance of the criminals at the top, not the goons doing petty collection and enforcement at the bottom. Same for Japanese laws that target the finance of Yakuza, not the arrest of violence on the street.
So, target the finance, that's the only way.