California’s shoplifter protection act
Conn Carroll
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It is bad enough that California’s Proposition 47 already functionally legalized shoplifting in the Golden State by reducing the penalty for stealing less than $950 worth of merchandise to a misdemeanor.
But now Democrats want to make it even easier for shoplifters by making it illegal for employees to confront them.
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And this is all being done in the name of “safety.”
Senate Bill 553, introduced by Democratic state Sen. Dave Cortese of Santa Clara, requires all businesses to develop a “workplace violence prevention plan,” document all crimes committed at the workplace, and, most importantly, forbid all nonsecurity personnel from confronting shoplifters.
In other words, businesses can still hire armed security guards to stop shoplifters, but all other employees would be forbidden from doing so.
Business owners, especially small-business owners, know this well-meaning but naive legislation would be a disaster for their livelihoods.
“This bill should be called the retail business killer,” Harminder Singh, a member of the American Petroleum and Convenience Store Association, said at a rally in Sacramento last week.
“This bill doesn’t say anything on how we will be protected from the shoplifters and business and supplies from the robbers,” Singh continued.
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Singh is right. Nothing in the legislation, and nothing in California law generally, does anything to protect business owners from shoplifters. That’s because for the Democratic Party that has been running California into the ground for decades now, it is the shoplifters, not the store owners, who are the real victims.
Shoplifters already know they are virtually immune from criminal prosecution in California, and if S.B. 553 becomes law, they’ll know most shop owners and their employees won’t be allowed to do anything to stop them either.