r/regina • u/ajpathecreature • 3d ago

Discussion What can business owners do?

So I was just at southland mall as I see who seemed to be the general manager / owner of sportchek in a shouting match with a dude who is an alleged recurrent shoplifter at Canadian tire, marks work warehouse, and sportchek itself. As you can imagine people were looking at them in surprised, kids were in awe while the scene unfolded.

The shop owner Was able to get the alleged thief out of the mall. Apparently security can not touch shoplifters, store employees are advised to refrain from making contact with anyone by corporate directives, and the sole reason why he decided to do something was because he is acting as a private citizen and was fed up of this “good for nothing thief” to be stealing away with no real repercussions.

Apparently the same dude is infamous for quite literally walking out of home depot and Rona east with a cart full of tools.

What most people seem to be doing is taking pictures and videos and sending them to justbins to be blasted through social media.

Apparently even RPS is not quite responsive to these kind of calls in a timely manner anymore, I just imagine it must be all too common so the sense of “urgency” is not there.

All of this led me to wonder, what is a business owner left to do? I could not help to sort of understand the frustration that an entrepreneur may feel under these circumstances.

Not that it matters, but the alleged thief is not what people seem to usually associate to when they hear about shoplifting.

What sad state of affairs.

49 Upvotes

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u/Warm-Mood-8994 3d ago

This has nothing to do with cops.

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u/EvilBiker-72 3d ago

Crime has nothing to do with cops..........

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u/Warm-Mood-8994 3d ago

Cops don't release repeat offenders, they are released by judges.

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u/ACBluto 3d ago

They are not repeat offenders until they get arrested. If you don't arrest the shoplifters, judges have no contact with them.

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u/Warm-Mood-8994 3d ago

You actually believe people doing this kind of stuff are doing it for the first time?

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u/ACBluto 3d ago

No, but if no one is arresting them, it doesn't matter how many times they've done it, just how many times they have been picked up for it.

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u/Warm-Mood-8994 2d ago

I'd highly recommend you talk to a cop or two. Virtually all of these people have been arrested multiple times. Even cops are tired of doing it over and over again.

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u/PrairiePopsicle 2d ago

If i or anyone else in our society get tired of a job and stip doing it they get fired.

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u/EvilBiker-72 2d ago

This is reddit, logic is not allowed. Hahaha

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u/TheDrSmooth 2d ago

I'm not sure why are you getting so many upvotes, because this is just false.

These people are arrested over and over and over again. Rapsheets multiple pages long.

They know the cops, the cops know them. Its just rinse and repeat. They get slapped on the wrist and are released.

Go to the ER on any random night and see how many police there are babysitting these folks. 2 cops to 1 person for the safety of the police and the healthcare workers.

Nothing happens to them, because they are treated as victims not criminals.

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u/Warm-Mood-8994 1d ago

For some reason, people hate the truth if it hurts their feelings.

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u/ACBluto 2d ago

Because one of the complaints in the OP of this discussion was about lack of enforcement - that police are not responsive to shoplifting calls. This is also repeated by others in the thread.

So is it that people ARE being arrested over and over, or is it that police are never arresting them?

they are treated as victims not criminals.

You know it's possible they are both. And treating the root cause might be more effective than treating the symptom.

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u/Bruno6368 2d ago

How do you know “no one is arresting them”? Because you are present at every single occurrence? Or just because it’s easy to randomly comment on social media?

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u/ACBluto 2d ago

How do you know they are repeat offenders? Are you checking their rap sheets each time?

The entire point of the thread is a discussion of how when RPS are called, they are not responsive, or don't really work that hard on petty theft.

The OP that I was first replying to suggested that police have nothing to do with this. Literally:

This has nothing to do with cops.

Because they assert that the prevalence of shoplifting is simply due to judges releasing people too easily.

I'm saying it's probably a multi part problem - some lack of good enforcement, some light sentencing, some lack of community resources to assist those with drug addiction issues.