Dave Cortese is a Democratic State Senator representing California’s 15th District (Silicon Valley). He came up politically in the rough-and-tumble of San Jose politics. He’s a more or less standard liberal Democrat, although like most of his party in California he’s wandered into full-blown wokeness with his focus on “restorative justice” and “fighting systematic inequities,” and with his work “to halt the incarceration of offenders under 13 years of age at Juvenile Hall.” (This is very much in line with the thinking of such notables as Pamela Price.) Gov. Newsom signed into law Cortese’s 2021 Juvenile Justice Diversion bill (SB 383), “with an aim of shifting the focus of our justice system from incarceration to rehabilitation.” In announcing his bill, Cortese said, “Every child deserves the opportunity to attain rehabilitation as an alternative to prolonged incarceration.”
The Senator has a new bill he’s championing. Senate Bill 553 would, if passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, “prohibit employers from forcing their staff to confront active shoplifters.” It’s already passed the State Senate and heads to the Assembly on Sept. 1. Cortese’s rationale for this proposed new law is that it’s simply too dangerous for an employee to confront a shoplifter; this is why Cortese dubs SB553 “a workplace violence prevention plan as part of the injury prevention program.”
On one level SB553 makes sense. There have been numerous news reports of store employees confronting shoplifters, encounters that have ended in violence. As a result of those incidents, “California needs smarter guidelines to keep workers safe,” Cortese says. As he tells employers, “Don’t push the bagger or the guy sweeping the floor into a confrontational situation.”
Surely no one wants to see store employees forced into unacceptably dangerous situations. Why, then, are small businesses so opposed to SB553? Hundreds of them, including owners of gas stations, liquor stores, car washes and convenience stores, rallied against the bill at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Wednesday, some of them coming from as far as Los Angeles. “Bills are saying that this is in protection of the employees, but it only protects the shoplifters," said one. “Every day or every other day, people are coming openly and taking stuff and walking out. Police come either 10 hours later or next day or they say file online report. We are in [a] bad situation," said another. “This bill should be called retail business killer SB 553," said a third, adding, “This bill doesn't say anything on how we will be protected from the shoplifters and business and supplies from the robbers” Yet another small business owner said even her “regulars” are shoplifting. “They aren't afraid of the law.”
Opposition to SB553 is so fierce that an online petition against it at change.org has garnered hundreds of signatures. Other opponents include the California Republican Party, the California Chamber of Commerce, and the California Retailers Association. The latter argues that, although SB553 specifically exempts security guard employees (meaning that they can be required to confront shoplifters), most mom-and-pop stores “don’t have the capability” to afford dedicated security personnel. A spokesperson for the group stated, “I’ve been talking to those small businesses and they told me they will absolutely close if they have to hire security.”
Reform California, a conservative-leaning political action committee, in opposing SB553 describes it as “the latest in a line of attacks on public safety and is yet another example of California’s liberal politicians enabling and coddling criminals.” The Orange County Register, also in opposition, predicted that SB553 would “unleash thieves across the state.
Lawyers are already advising their small business clients to “smoothen the transition” to the bill, although there’s no consensus on how to do that. Given the likelihood of the Assembly passing it, SB553 will then pass on to the Governor for his signature. Newsom has indicated he has problems with it in its current form.
SB553 is destined to become yet another flash point in the continuing public debate about how to deal with crime. Is it protecting worker safety, or is it coddling criminals? It seems to me that one compromise here is to offer employees the choice of confronting shoplifters. Some will be ready to do that; others won’t. To either mandate it or to outlaw any interaction at all between employees and shoplifters seems unwise. I’ve seen a lot of shoplifters in downtown Oakland and most of them don’t seem dangerous, although you never know. If I were a stockboy at, say, Rite Aid or Walgreens, I’d be happy to intervene with shoplifters. If the perp was 6’4” and 240 pounds, I might demur, but otherwise, I’d consider it my duty to get involved. So I have enormous sympathy for the small business owners who claim Cortese cares more about criminals than he does about them as victims.
Confronting shoplifters may not be easy, but are we ready to throw in the towel and allow them to get away with mass retail theft?
Steve Heimoff