Elsewhere on Ethics Alarms are a few posts defending the decision by employers to fire employees who have physically intervened in attempted robberies, sometimes to the extent of capturing the thieves. Such individuals are usually hailed as heroes by the media and the public, and the stores that discipline them are assailed as heartless ingrates. The companies are on solid ground, ethically, legally and practically. Typically, there are policies in the employees handbook specifically laying out how robberies are to be handled. Physical intervention not only risks the would-be hero’s well-being, but the welfare of other employees as well. When a staffer’s amateur law-enforcement act goes well, it is still just moral luck.
Unfortunately, this sensible policy has had illicit relations with the “shoplifting should be a crime” mutants, and the result is one frightening deformed offspring. Thanks to woke brain rot seeping through San Francisco and other urban areas, viral videos show staff just standing by politely as people forage through store shelves, sometimes returning several times.
The woman above, Mary Ann Moreno, had worked at Circle K for 18 years. Moreno was behind the counter when Tyler Wimmer walked into the convenience store with a knife, and asked Mary if she would give him a pack of cigarettes for free. Moreno declined. When he grabbed a pack anyway, she instinctively reached out and touched him, then pulled away. Based on the surveillance tapes, the company fired her for violating the company’s “Don’t Chase or Confront Policy” regarding shoplifters and robbers. Moreno is now suing Circle K Stores Inc. Her attorney, Iris Halpern, said the footage clearly shows that Moreno acted in self-defense and made no real effort to stop or chase Wimmer. “Companies have not sufficiently thought through the nuance in these situations,” she says.
Well, not unless their objective is to welcome all shoplifters and thieves and order employees to volunteer to help them fill bags with free merchandise. All right, let’s say that Mary was too bold when she made contact with the grab-and-run jerk.
How about this one:
In Atlanta, Georgia, Lululemon fired assistant manager Jennifer Ferguson and another staffer, Rachel Rogers, this month for telling masked robbers who were ransacking their store not to do it. Video shows three men bursting into the Peachtree Corners Lululemon store and grabbing armsful of merchandise. “No, no, no, you can march back out!” Jennifer Ferguson said.
“Chill, bitch, shut your ass up,”was one of the robber’s witty rejoinder. They left, then returned to take some pairs of leggings. The same looters allegedly had hit that same store nearly a dozen times before. The Lululemon staffers followed the criminals outside to see where they ran, but did not physically try to stop them. They did report the robbery to the Gwinnett Police Department, and the crooks were caught. Ferguson and Rogers, however, were fired.
The company policy forbids employees from calling the police on thieves. After all, one wouldn’t want them to have their stealing experience spoiled.
“We are not supposed to get in the way,” Ferguson said. “You kind of clear path for whatever they’re going to do. After it’s over, you scan a QR code. And that’s that. We’ve been told not to put it in any notes, because that might scare other people. We’re not supposed to call the police, not really supposed to talk about it.”
When the two women were fired without severance, they were told it would “look bad for Lululemon to be the company calling the police.”
Ethics Alarms 
You know what would also look bad for Lululemon – closed stores and lost profits. I guess the threat of mobs of irate defenders of shoplifters is intimidating enough for them to risk the bottom line.
Makes me conclude that retail stores must get their inventory essentially for next to nothing. All this “shrinkage” is just fine. I’ve always wondered how retail stores can pay their rent and their employees and buy their inventory and make a profit. Answer: They get their stuff for free, and every penny of sales is profit! Just kidding. I guess.
If I were a customer, I might start to resent the fact that I’m paying outlandish prices for a few ounces of cloth that are apparently so cheap that the seller can hand them out in large quantities (to criminals) for free and not sweat the expense.
I can understand a ban against physical intervention. It’s physically and legally risky, and opens up the company to liability. But calling the police? Isn’t there some sort of legal rule that you can’t forbid someone from reporting a crime, or retaliate against them for reporting a crime? That would seem to be a bedrock principle of a civilized society.
This was completely predictable. Every slippery slope argument with leftist policies seems to come true. Telling people they have to accept criminal activity is how you promote a culture of lawlessness that leads to the anarcho-tyranny we see in the cities today. You can see these ideas play out in the first Death Wish movie in the 1970’s.
You know, if I were a Lululemon employee, I would do exactly what the company wants. Why not? If these idiot Lululemon shareholders can absorb all that shrinkage and still be happy, why the hell should I care? Their margins must be absurd to absorb it, but that’s on them, not me.
However, I would make sure I had personal protection just in the off chance that the shoplifter wanted more than just the merchandise.
Why bother to work when the companies are willing to let you have the product for free? Why would anyone bother to work in these places? Just steal the merchandise and sell it on the black market. You can probably make far more than the company would pay you to not stop thieves.
The counterproductiveness is mind boggling.
You can call it shoplifting. I call it robbery.
I’ve worked retail, so I understand all of the reasons to avoid confrontation. I don’t understand shoppers that would continue to go to a store that shows so little regard for their employees that they do nothing to discourage this thievery. Also, I’d be worried that emboldened robbers might decide that shoppers’ purses and wallets would make a nice addition to their haul.
I know the odds of being robbed in a store as a shopper are very low. On the other hand, they are pretty much zero when I shop online from a reputable seller.
Bingo! Yes paying patrons are endangered.
So to prevent potential patrons from becoming aware that the store is a target for thieves, the management forbids notifying the police of the thefts. That way there are no public records of the events. There is also no record of the events for investors to see. Many of the businesses ending or curtailing activities in SF are citing the fear of trouble keeping potential patrons away.
I was going to respond with something pithy, but I think I’m going to Lululemon. I read they’re just giving stuff away.
While I think a rule against calling the police is ridiculous and counterproductive, it was a Wendy’s in Atlanta that called the police on the drunk in the drive-through who attempted to taze the responding officers and was shot. Protesters arrived later and burned the Wendy’s down. Lululemon might feel it is better to lose stock than to see the entire store go up in flames.
I’ve been in one store that had a sign saying something like: “Employees are authorized to use force to prevent shoplifting”. I can see why employees playing hero would be a liability concern, but if I was a store owner, I would have each new employee sign a waiver saying they are not REQUIRED to confront shoplifters, but if they do, they do so at their own risk, and agree not to hold the establishment liable in any way.
I can also imagine that businesses like say, a jewelry store in a high-crime area, may need employees to be more proactive than the average supermarket. In that case, the store should have trainings on self-defense and restraint techniques.
Will society eventually arrive at the conclusion that since looting is essentially condoned, why shouldn’t everyone participate? Why would anyone spend their own own money to purchase what can be had just for the taking? And apparently all without consequence of any kind. Is this the mindset being created?
Short answer?…
Yes.
Lululemon has basically been hoist on their own petard. They were one of the early enthusiastic corporate donors to…wait for it…Black Lives Matter! They sort of painted themselves into a corner where they can’t really object to the theft of their merchandise, at least unless it is white guys stealing their stuff.
I have visited a few parts of the world where it is common to see burly uniformed security guards with tactical shotguns posted outside the doors of virtually every store in a retail business district; a really effective “fool around and find out” message. I have been told that most of the shotguns are loaded with a combination of hard rubber buckshot and very fine birdshot, but I really don’t know. I expect to see similar obvious security measures in many areas here eventually, at least among non-woke concerns that want to remain in business.