Shoplifting in West Seattle

[genebean]

At 11:30 am today, a man walked into the QFC store on Alaska Street, took two CASES of beer and started to walk out. Two employees attempted to ASK him to put the beer back as he attempted to leave the store without paying. They did not touch him but continued to request that he not steal the beer. He left one case and took the other. I asked the employee, why they didn’t stop him and was told. “WE are not to touch anyone shoplifting or we will be fired from our job”.
What has happened to our community? As I have often said, when you stop holding people accountable to the small infractions, then the big infractions become normalized. We need to take our community back from this theft. It still is illegal and only raises the cost of food for all of us.

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[Seriously?]

Why didn’t you try to stop them?

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[SteveP]

I worked at that QFC and the company would fire you even if you said anything to them. Those employees can still get terminated. I remember watching a shoplifter bag over $300 in meat in the wide open. Then leave the store, return load up again, leave and return for a 3rd time. Almost $700 worth of meat was stolen in about 3 hours by the same person. I of course told management and they were indifferent about the situation. Not for personal reasons, but because their hands are tied with corporate policy. Now here is why the company will not stop theft. Believe it or not they actually make money when people steal through insurance and price increases. There are enough honest people who will pay for their groceries with price hikes vs the damage from shoplifters.

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[heartless]

You should take a stance and boycott that chain of stores until corporate changes their policy. As others have pointed out, the hands-off policy is coming from headquarters–you anonymously ranting about our local community won’t do much!

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[2 Much Whine]

So you want to boycott the company until they make a policy that puts their employees at risk of being shot, stabbed or otherwise harmed? Those policies are there for a reason – if employees have to act as law enforcement officers then they’d need to get paid a lot more money. There would also need to be a lot of training to ensure they handle confrontations properly. Sadly, it’s cheaper to lose a few steaks than it is to deal with lawsuits from grieving employee families after a shoplifting incident goes south.

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[genebean]

To be honest, I didn’t know what was going on until they were at the door and I wasn’t in a position to intervene. They also said to stay back. I could see what was happening, but not at a position to jump in. Sorry. I wish I could have done more.

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[heartless]

Whine: do I want to boycott QFC? Not at all. I was merely suggesting that avenue of action for Genebean, should Genebean want to act in addition to complaining.

(Frankly I think it’s weird when people leap to the defense of companies with CEOs making tens of millions of dollars PER YEAR, companies that, as others have pointed out, choose not to bother with shoplifters (for whatever reasons), but, hey, everyone’s gotta have a hobby, right?)

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[Seriously?]

@genebean,so what you’re saying is that you jumped to a conclusion based on insufficient information, came here to rant about it, then changed your story when you got called out.

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