What Shoplifters and DC Grocers Tell Us About the State of Elite America
4th June 2024
Grocery store Harris Teeter’s DC locations started implementing a receipt check at the door. Giant Foods recently banned duffel bags or those measuring more than 14 x 14 x 6 inches, which disqualifies most backpacks, in their stores. And Safeway instituted a glass barrier at self-checkout, requiring customers to scan their receipt before they can leave.
Shoplifting has become a major issue across the country. Retailers lost almost $100 billion to theft in 2021. These numbers are more than just a slip-a-candy-bar-into-your-pocket kind of theft. Most grocery stores attribute their loss to organized shoplifting, or “boosting.” People will steal goods and then sell them for cheaper.
“Items that are typically ‘boosted’ and then sold to stolen merchandise dealers (aka ‘fences’) are mostly health and beauty products, over-the-counter medications, and even food,” reported Jared Klickstein. He recounts his experience “working” just four hours a day and earning up to $350 in untaxed cash, allowing him to keep up his drug addiction, claiming that many boosters are drug addicts. Klickstein was boosting back in 2015, and with the disasters that accompanied Covid in 2020, defunding police departments especially, the boosting problem has only increased.