NYC Grocery Store Owners Form Political Coalition to Demand Efforts to Stop Shoplifters

By BoroPark24

Thousands of New York City independent grocery store owners have banded together to form a political coalition to demand that law enforcement and elected officials do something about the growing shoplifting crisis that has grown increasingly bold and violent.  

Representing nearly 4,000 New York City grocery stores, Collective Action to Protect our Stores, or CAPS, calls for action. CAPS requests that prosecutors and judges set bail for repeat theft offenders, this would require reversing New York's 2019 bail reform law.

CAPS also asks that assaults on retail workers become a Class D felony, like for MTA and NYPD officers and livery drivers.

CAPS also demands that legislators do something about the fact that thieves are not prosecuted or arrested for stealing less than $1,000 worth of goods. CAPS wants serial shoplifters whose stolen goods are worth more than $1,000 cumulatively to be charged with grand theft instead of petit larceny. 

The New York Post reports that on Thursday, the NYPD said 327 criminals were responsible for 30% of New York City's 22,000 shoplifting arrests last year, each of them has been arrested for an average of more than 20 times.

CAPS members claim that ninety-seven percent of the shoplifters steal to sell the goods, not because they are starving.

Kosher supermarkets in Boro Park seem to have been left off the CAPS membership list, as none of the store managers BoroPark24 reached out to had even heard of the fledgling organization. 

"I haven't heard anything about it," LD Iskowitz, manager of KRM, tells BoroPark24 when asked if his store is a member of CAPS. "In Boro Park, it is an absolute kiddush Hashem how little shoplifting there is compared to the world out there. Really, we see the opposite with people being honest and coming back in to tell us, 'You undercharged, I took two, and you only charged me for one.'"