From The New York Post - November 3, 2002
‘Tis the Season To Be Shoplifting
By LAURA PETRECCA
Call it "Winona's Army." As the sticky-fingered starlet stands trial for allegedly attempting to snatch some $5,000 worth of merchandise from a Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue, New York retailers are reporting a new spate of brazen shoplifters.
The owner of an upscale men's retailer on Staten Island watched in horror as a group of thugs rushed into his store, helped themselves to armfuls of clothes and dashed out.
At an Upper West Side boutique, a culprit thought he had a leg up when cops couldn't figure out why he set off security alarms. Upon removing a soon discovered prosthetic leg, police unearthed three shirts stuffed inside.
Then there was the shopper at a woman's clothing boutique in Midtown, who actually chewed through the security tags on the items she desired - leaving only a pile of white plastic and lipstick marks as evidence.
"I found piles of tags chewed off," said the stunned shopkeeper, who asked not to be named.
The number of people looking for the proverbial "five-finger discount" always increases during the holiday season, as stores grow more crowded and thieves find it easier to move without detection.
But this year might be a particularly tough one for New York retailers.
For one thing, after a year of soft sales, many stores are making do with smaller staffs, making detection more difficult. And they'll often be using inexperienced temporary workers to handle the holiday hours.
"The influx of untrained and inexperienced employees adds to the vulnerability," says Peter Berlin, executive director of crime rehabilitation group Shoplifters Alternative.
What's more, the slumping economy and rising unemployment is spurring many to take even bigger risks, shopkeepers report.
"Things are certainly worse than they were years ago," said Robert Pidgeon, director of human resources at the discount chain National Wholesale Liquidators.
"A lot of people don't have money and they're desperate."
And it's not just low-end shops.
Owners of the chic Soho boutique Kirna Zabete were so concerned that they decided to hire a guard and add cameras and merchandise sensory tags for the first time.
"We do everything we can to prevent shoplifting," said Beth Buccini, the store's co-owner.
Nationwide, losses from shoplifting are expected to rise about $1 billion this year, according to a study by the consulting firm Retail Forward.
Local statistics are hard to come by, because most major cities - including Los Angeles and New York - do not track shoplifting as a separate crime, but instead include it in with petty larceny. But experts say thieves' are racking up more in each sweep.
The average loss per shoplifting incident was $195.73 in 2001, up 53 percent from 2000, according to the National Retail Security Survey. Retailers nabbed an average of 132 shoplifters for every $100 million in sales in 2001. That number was 96.5 the year before.
One grocery store manager says he's caught offenders with whole hams and turkeys shoved inside specially designed dresses.
Others are more sophisticated. Pidgeon, of National Wholesale Liquidators, says he's seen a big jump in a return scam in which a customer buys a big-ticket item, visits the store again the next day, picks up the same item off the floor and tries to return it with the day-old receipt.
”We used to be more compassionate, but now we’ve taken a harder line in prosecuting,” he said. “We’re calling the police more and more.”