Bill to reduce retail theft by reducing stores' reliance on self-checkout lanes opposed -- by retailers

A California bill that aims to reduce theft by rolling back grocery and drug stores’ reliance on self-checkout lanes has been met with opposition from the state’s retailers — one of the main groups the bill is designed to protect.

While supporters of the Retail Theft Prevention and Safe Staffing Act said the bill would thwart would-be shoplifters and protect employees from sometimes hostile confrontations, the bill has also prompted blowback from retailer groups who say its measures are overly burdensome and lack evidence that they would reduce theft.

Senate Bill 1446 author Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, D-Los Angeles, said she was surprised at the bill’s criticism, given the growing amount of losses attributed to retail theft.

SNIP

Smallwood-Cuevas, a former labor union organizer, said flesh-and-blood employees are the biggest deterrents to retail theft. It’s a service that she said has been lost with the spread of self-checkout lanes, which are often used to cut labor costs.

Link (paywall): https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/self-checkout-bill-retail-theft-19457417.php

Highlights:

• Bill is envisioned as more than just an anti-theft measure, according to Smallwood-Cuevas. It’s about protecting workers from artificial intelligence technologies that are quickly replacing humans in a growing number of industries.

• National Retail Federation, in a 2023 survey, found the measure of losses from theft by a retailer increased by $18 billion from 2021 to in 2022 -- $112 billion total.

• Example: a woman convicted of stealing more than $60,000 in merchandise from a Target store over one a year by pretending to pay for items at a self-checkout lane.

• California Retailers Association: “(The) statutory requirements in SB1446 are overly burdensome and limit our ability to change as necessary.”

• Proposal details:

-- Must staff at least one employee at a manual checkout station while the self-service options are in use.

-- Limit self-service lanes to 10 items or fewer.

-- Prohibit customers from using self-checkout options to buy certain products, including items that use surveillance tags.

-- Ensure that employees are monitoring no more than two self-service stations at a time, and are relieved from all other duties.

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Retailers would rather write-off theft than employ people.