NYC grocery stores consider locking up food due to theft

Published

2 years ago

January 10, 2023

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Retail shoplifting in NYC

Shoplifting is so bad that grocery stores are warning that food might have to be kept behind the counter.

NEW YORK – Like drug stores locking up toothpaste, your local grocery store might have to start locking up meats and vegetables due to rampant shoplifting.

"People have no fear of coming to your store and stealing," Nelson Eusebio of the National Supermarket Association.

He also warns that shoplifters are becoming more violent.

“Our employees are terrified.”

"Our employees are terrified," Eusebio says. "We have young people that come to work, young cashiers who work part-time, these kids are 16-17 years old. They're traumatized."

Eusebio says that when stores call about shoplifting, police do not respond quickly and the thief can be gone for hours before officers arrive.

He says the industry is moving towards locking up food.

“The shopping experience is just going to be gone.”

"Everything that is cosmetics, shampoo, baby formula is behind the counters. It's going to be more and more of that happening," Eusebio says. "We're going to have an environment where everything is behind the counter and the shopping experience is just going to be gone."

"You're not going to be able to smell the food, read the ingredients, look at a recipe, that's going to disappear if we don't do something now," Eusebio says.

The National Supermarket Association represents independent grocery stores in New York City. It's statistics show that 30% of its membership has left the city. NYC stores beg for help against serial shoplifters

Bodega and grocery store owners in New York City are demanding more help to combat brazen shoplifting that is endangering their survival.

Frank Marte of the Bodega and Small Business Group says around 97% of the people stealing items are doing it to resell them.

"You feel for our security and employees because there's no consequence and our D.A. is not punishing them and our elected officers, they are the worst, in this case," Marte says. "We need to work with NYPD."

‘Out of control’: NYC stores beg for help against serial shoplifters

The industry is banding together to form a coalition called Collective Action to Protect our Stores (CAPS).

The coalition is led by the independent supermarkets of the National Super Market Association and the founding members are the National Supermarket Association, the Bodega and Small Business Group, and the Metro Supermarket Association.

Among the items they are demanding is stiffer penalties for shoplifting.

Politics

High risk, high reward: Crypto perpetual futures gain momentum in US

Published

1 hour ago

June 20, 2025

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High risk, high reward: Crypto perpetual futures gain momentum in US

Coinbase is gearing up to launch crypto perpetual futures as the CFTC reconsiders its previous stance toward the high-risk financial products.

Politics

The SEC’s staking guidance pivot is what tech-savvy regulation looks like

Published

1 hour ago

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UK

MPs back legalising assisted dying in England and Wales after historic Commons vote

Published

1 hour ago

June 20, 2025

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MPs back legalising assisted dying in England and Wales after historic Commons vote

MPs have voted to approve a historic bill that would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales.

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was approved by 314 votes to 291 at its third reading in the House of Commons – a majority of 23.

Politics Live: MPs back legalising assisted dying in historic Commons vote

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the legislation, was seen crying in the chamber as it went through.

Campaign group Dignity in Dying hailed the result as “a landmark moment for choice, compassion and dignity at the end of life”.

“MPs have listened to dying people, to bereaved families and to the public, and have voted decisively for the reform that our country needs and deserves,” said Sarah Wootton, its chief executive.

The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where it will face further scrutiny before becoming law.

Due to a four-year “backstop” added to the bill, it could be 2029 before assisted dying is actually offered, potentially coinciding with the end of this government’s parliament.

The bill would allow terminally ill adults with fewer than six months to live to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist.

MPs have deliberated the proposals for months, with a vote in November passing with a bigger majority of 55.

Since then it has undergone some significant changes, the most controversial being the replacement of a High Court Judge’s approval with the expert panel.

Ms Leadbeater has always insisted her legislation would have the most robust safeguards of any assisted dying laws in the world.

Opening the debate on Friday she said that opposing the bill “is not a neutral act. It is a vote for the status quo”.

She warned that if her plan was rejected, MPs would be asked to vote on it again in 10 years and “that fills me with despair”.

MPs have brought about historic societal change

A chain of events that started with the brutal murder of an MP almost 10 years ago has today led to historic societal change – the like of which many of us will never see again.

Assisted dying will be legalised in England and Wales. In four years’ time adults with six months or less to live and who can prove their mental capacity will be allowed to choose to die.

Kim Leadbeater, the MP who has made this possible, never held political aspirations. Previously a lecturer in health, Ms Leadbeater reluctantly stood for election after her sister Jo Cox was fatally stabbed and shot to death in a politically motivated attack in 2016.

And this is when, Ms Leadbeater says, she was forced to engage with the assisted dying debate. Because of the sheer volume of correspondence from constituents asking her to champion the cause.

Polls have consistently shown some 70% of people support assisted dying. And ultimately, it is this seismic shift in public opinion that has carried the vote. Britain now follows Canada, the USA, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Australia. All countries with sophisticated health systems. Nowhere has assisted dying been reversed once introduced.

The relationship between doctor and patient will now also change. The question is being asked: Is an assisted death a treatment? There is no decisive answer. But it is a conversation that will now take place. The final answer could have significant consequences, especially in mental health settings.

There are still many unknowns. Who will be responsible for providing the service? The NHS? There is a strong emotional connection to the health service and many would oppose the move. But others will argue that patients trust the institution and would want to die in its arms.

The challenge for health leaders will be to try and reconcile the bitter divisions that now exist within the medical community. The Royal Colleges have tried to remain neutral on the issue, but continued to challenge Ms Leadbeater until the very end.

Their arguments of a failure of safeguards and scrutiny did not resonate with MPs. And nor did concerns over the further erosion of palliative care. Ms Leadbeater’s much-repeated insistence that “this is the most scrutinised legislation anywhere in the world” carried the most weight.

Her argument that patients should not have to fear prolonged, agonising deaths or plan trips to a Dignitas clinic to die scared and alone, or be forced to take their own lives and have their bodies discovered by sons, daughters, husbands and wives because they could not endure the pain any longer was compelling.

The country believed her.

The assisted dying debate was last heard in the Commons in 2015, when it was defeated by 330 votes to 118.

There have been calls for a change in the law for decades, with a campaign by broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen giving the issue renewed attention in recent years.

Supporters have described the current law as not being fit for purpose, with desperate terminally ill people feeling the need to end their lives in secret or go abroad alone, for fear loved ones will be prosecuted for helping them.

Ahead of the vote, an hours-long emotionally charged debate heard MPs tell personal stories about their friends and family.

Maureen Burke, the Labour MP for Glasgow North East, spoke about how her terminally ill brother David was in so much pain from advanced pancreatic cancer that one of the last things he told her was that “if there was a pill that he could take to end his life, he would very much like to take that”.

She said she was “doing right by her brother” in voting for it.

How did MPs vote?

MPs were given a free vote, meaning they could vote with their conscience and not along party lines.

The division list shows Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer voted in favour of the bill, but Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch voted against.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who will have to deliver the bill, also voted no.

Read more: Find out how your MP voted

Bill ‘poorly drafted’

Opponents have raised both practical and ethical concerns, including that people could be coerced into seeking an assisted death and that the bill has been rushed through.

Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott said she was not opposed to the principle of assisted dying but called the legislation “poorly drafted”.

Former foreign secretary James Cleverly echoed those concerns, saying he is “struck by the number of professional bodies which are neutral on the topic of assisted dying in general, but all are opposed to the provisions of this bill”.

Recently, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Physicians have raised concerns about the bill, including that there is a shortage of staff to take part in assisted dying panels.

However, public support for a change in the law remains high, according to a YouGov poll published on the eve of the vote.

The survey of 2,003 adults in Great Britain suggested 73% of those asked last month were supportive of the bill, while the proportion of people who feel assisted dying should be legal in principle stood at 75%.