By: Ilana Siyance
New York City grocers are fed up with assaults on their livelihood and are demanding action from elected officials and law enforcement.
As reported by the NY Post, some four thousand independent grocers across NYC are banding together to form a coalition to demand consequences for shoplifting. The group- which now includes corner bodegas and supermarkets across the metro area such as KeyFood and C-Town, wants to see a reversal of the controversial bail-reform laws. The grocers say they are enduring a crisis with increasingly bold and dangerous heists at their stores.
Collective Action to Protect our Stores, or CAPS as they call themselves, say their best bet is if prosecutors and judges start setting bail for “repeat theft offenders”. The group also wants lawmakers to give extra protection to the grocers by classifying assaults on retail workers as a Class D felony — which is currently a protection granted to MTA and NYPD officers and taxi drivers. The Post reported, the group maintains that they too are essential workers, and that thugs need to be deterred from attacking them. “We have been assaulted, terrorized, and our physical and mental health jeopardized,” the group said in a letter being sent Monday to Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and a whole list of other city and state officials. “A rise in larceny cases has hit independent supermarkets hard.”
CAPS also wants to see a change to the law that allows shoplifters to feel they will not typically be prosecuted or arrested for stealing less than $1,000 worth of merchandise. The group says that legislation should be changed, so that serial shoplifters who steal $1,000 or more ‘in total’ worth of goods over time will be charged with grand larceny and not just petit larceny. “Repeat offenders are the key words,” Carlos Collado, owner of two Fine Fare grocery stores in the Bronx and Harlem, told The Post. “We are not asking for elevated charges for first-time offenders, but to send a message to those who make it a career.”
Additionally, the CAPS’s letter says that businesses that resell stolen goods are a big part of the problem and should be addressed. As per the Post, they suggest that Albany legislators should put these businesses on notice by reclassifying such resales as a Class A misdemeanors –meaning the operators could be slapped with fines and even short jail time. “Ninety-seven percent of the shoplifters do it to sell the stuff,” said Francisco Marte, who owns two bodegas in the Bronx and who leads the Bodega group. Very few are “doing it because they are hungry,” Marte added.
Collado said things are hitting rock bottom with supermarket operators “maybe in the past eight months” feeling so frustrated with law enforcement, that they “started feeling like it’s useless to call the cops.” “Sometimes now we catch them and we don’t even bother calling NYPD unless it results in a violent aggressor,” Collado said. “We don’t even hear from the DAs. We handle it ourselves.”
