California Democrats Push Union-Backed Anti-Self-Checkout Bill Under Guise of Fighting Crime, Racism
“We know that what makes our community safe is not more jail time and penalties. What makes our community safe is real enforcement, having real workers that are on the floor.”
California Democrats who have rarely, if ever, come across a soft-on-crime bill they didn’t like are now pushing a union-backed anti-self-checkout bill that supporters say would combat crime, increase worker safety, and decrease incidents of alleged racism.
The Retail Theft Prevention and Safe Staffing Act, otherwise known as Senate Bill 1446, was introduced earlier this year by Democrat state Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (Los Angeles) and has gotten renewed attention in light of the retail chains that have made announcements in recent weeks noting adjustments to their self-checkout policies.
“This act will protect workers and the public by ensuring safe staffing levels at grocery and drug stores and regulating self-checkout machines in a way that’s being smart on crime,” Smallwood-Cuevas has claimed.
Here are the things it would mandate if signed into law:
The proposed law would prohibit grocery and drug stores from using self-checkout machines unless they do the following:
The bill is, of course, backed by union groups that have long opposed self-checkout lanes. One of them, the United Food and Commercial Workers, says the bill would help combat the supposed racism that is allegedly inherent in the storing of certain popular items under lock and key:
The bill also bans items with theft-deterrence measures from being purchased at self-checkout, even with an employee deactivating such a device. The union, which seems to aim to reduce the number of locked up items through the bill by increasing labor costs for deactivating anti-theft devices, blames racism, not theft, for the use of anti-theft devices.
“The types of products that are locked up, and in which stores, also indicate racial bias, rightfully angering customers who see that stores are unfairly targeting them,” the union continued.
Smallwood-Cuevas, a former labor organizer, has admitted she doesn’t believe penalizing criminals makes Californians safer and also conceded that her bill is primarily about hiring more workers:
“We have so many bills in this Legislature that are trying to increase penalties,” Smallwood-Cuevas told me. “We know that what makes our community safe is not more jail time and penalties. What makes our community safe is real enforcement, having real workers that are on the floor.”
That is an absolutely astonishing statement coming from an elected official in California, considering all the documented instances of smash and grabs and flash mobs, not to mention the brazen thieves who just waltz right in with trash bags in hand and proceed to stuff them full of items they have no intention of purchasing, bypassing the checkout lanes altogether.
In my view, it’s not a coincidence that this bill is under consideration when one recalls how some businesses in the state had no choice but to switch to self-checkout, reduce hours, and/or lay people off at some of their locations after the minimum wage for fast food workers rose to $20 in April:
This doesn’t mean they’ll repeal the minimum wage edict that created the problem. No – they’ll just put forth new laws like SB1446. A proposed state law could change regulations on self-checkout, forcing some stores to do away with the service altogether.
Just after many businesses made the expensive long-term move to automation and kiosks, they’ll still be forced to hire and pay people $20 an hour on top of it anyway. Or they can just close their doors and go out of business.
Further, if Smallwood-Cuevas and the other Democrats who support this legislation were genuinely concerned about retail crime, there’s one big thing they could do – but won’t:
“Either way, retailers lose on this bill,” retail legal advisor William Friedlander told the Globe on Monday. “If this passes, stores will greatly reduce the number of self-checkouts. That means less retail theft, but yeah, also long lines and stores having to hire a ton of more workers. If it doesn’t pass, self-checkouts are saved as is, but retail thefts continue.”
“The solution behind all this would be to change around Proposition 47, lower that $950 felony amount to the average that stores lose in retail theft, and bring back justice that way. That’s honestly the overarching way to fix this. But it is, and instead we have SB 1446 giving a ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ ultimatum. And yeah, we have seen both sides really put more resources into this recently for that reason. But no one wants to bring up the reason why all this is happening, Prop. 47. The author should have focused on that instead.”
The man has a point. Maybe once California gets done regulating gender-neutral toy sections and dipping their noses into other states’ business, and cities like San Francisco discover that their $5 million/year “free alcohol to the homeless” programs might not be such a good idea, they’ll get around to addressing the Prop. 47 issue. Until then…
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
I wonder if the idea isn’t in part to help Amazon, which is left-wing both at the corporate level and at the employee level, giving huge amounts of money to Democrats.
Employment would be created in the form of Amazon drivers and warehouse workers rather than at retail stores.
Eric, I don’t think the big bad evil Amazon is even considering this.
No, I just see this as another Democrat bill proposed by some frivolous fool that has never run a business or had to meet a payroll. Blend this in with the urge to stick it to the evil capitalists that DARE to run a business and expect a return on their investment (profit!!!). Add a pinch of “let’s regulate something!” and you have it all in a nice neat package.
Its about deterring black looting for “reparations”. In CA shoplifting under amount of $950 isn’t considered felony. Police won’t even respond to calls. Store employees aren’t authorized to lay hands on shoplifters, all they can do is take photographs and call police who never show up. Its driving retailers out of business in CA.
If CA really wanted to deter shoplifting they would actually pass a bill addressing shoplifting. This is a purely a give away to union hacks. Like the minimum wage hike.
Customer correctly scans 10 items, and fails to correctly scan 1 item. Then walks out the front door with 1 freebie. If ever questioned by store employee, the customer can claim it was simple human mistake, or the scanner made the error, and they believed they were scanning everything correctly, and then shoplifter accuses the employee of racial profiling and gets fired.
That, likely common error, is not “shoplifting” and not the cause of major retailer problems in CA or anywhere else.
This is the kind of reactive, badly-planned, unintended-consequences law that the government was passing with abandon in the last half of Atlas Shrugged. And it’s no coincidence.
That is not the problem. California’s threshold for grand theft is actually lower than most states, including Texas. In Texas it’s petty theft up to $2,500 rather than a mere $950; but in Texas petty theft is prosecuted, and people go to prison for it, so it hasn’t become a huge problem. The problem in California is that prosecutors stopped charging petty thieves, so police stopped arresting them, and the thieves soon found this out.
I don’t think so. It is the obvious reaction to the blowback from the mess they created with the $20hr min wage. Create a problem then come up with a solution that costs even more money.
Tail wags dog.
Intentional Action – Increase bad behavior (stealing) by reducing the penalty for bad behavior, driving up costs as well as degrading consumers shopping experience (higher prices);
Intended Reaction – Blame the victim (retail company) for the problem because prices are increasingly impacting consumer (reduced consumption which drives up prices);
Desired Solution – Drive retail industry into the ground to support the long-term goal of providing rich friends greater revenue (Amazon model) which also “reduces” individual travel (to save the planet) while leaving poor clamoring for more “state” relief (which the state loves).
Local Wal-Mart lost around 1.4 million last year from theft (shrinkage). The more they lock up stuff to prevent theft, the more shoppers will decide not to go there.
Classic example of blaming everyone not responsible for the problem created by a minority of the population.
Tail wags dog.
It’s proven to work. NJ has forbidden self-service gas pumps since 1949, and they have no racism or crime problems whatsoever.
Lol. Science!
Has anyone asked Doctor science? After all, he has a master’s degree. In science!
And no one ever shoplifts gas there!
I have never shoplifted gasoline. But as children of the energy crisis many of my peers developed the essential skill of siphoning same.
Yeah that’s true alright. But those singing woodland creatures frolicking with princesses through those shining cities on the hill can get on one’s nerves.
Except, of course, for this fool, who I think we all agree will be found to have been a closet gas-pumper. It’s the only explanation.
Just pass a bill that says customers who use self- checkout get an automatic employee discount, since they’re doing the employees’ job anyhow.
Watch how fast the self-checkout lanes disappear then.
I’ll look into my infallible crystal ball and predict that after this law passes and grocery stores in certain neighborhoods simply shut their doors rather than lose money every day, leaving nowhere for ‘people’ to shop in da ‘hood, the same people who enacted this law will talk non-stop about how white and RACIST corporations are. They’ll say grocery stores need to be taken over by the state. That’s the only natural conclusion of this idiocy.
LOL! As if letting, or being forced to let, the state run grocery stores will be even worse!
Retailers have little to lose by bailing out of Californica, or any leftist “utopia.”
Up next on the news: “the phenomenon of food/retail deserts. Is racism the cause?”
They find racism under every rock because they live under every rock.
The only thing they have to lose by leaving is the continual shrink and more losses
Better: legislate a mandatory employee discount for every customer who uses these self check out kiosks, and watch how fast these stores revert back to people for employees instead of these infuriating scan beep error error contraptions.
I believe you have identified the actual goal of this legislation.
We should stop welfare in inner cities, distribute seeds.
And jackhammers to plant them.
Keep fixing things until every business in America is run like a state DMV.
Build Back Better!
Hahaha
It’s funny that Walmart is pictured above given that Walmart is already implementing the proposed legislation due to the overwhelming amount of shoplifting that occurs at self-checkout kiosks. This law would basically demand that stores in low-crime neighborhoods behave like stores in high-crime neighborhoods so as not to hurt the feelings of the latter.
Didn’t Wal-Mart roll out a test for a self check out annual fee of $85 in some locations?
The Walmart+ also gets free home delivery with little or no minimum, lower prices at their own and at Murphy and I think Exxon, no-charge subscriptions to some streaming services,some discounts that, alone, cab pay back the memberships.
The articles about “being charged $nn.nn to use self-checkout do not tell the complete picture .
For LI’s resident grizzly, the Walmart+ membership paid back at least twice over per year
Government forced food deserts soon coming to a California location near you.
Well if it isn’t this it might just be the EV truck mandate. Forcing trucking companies to use vehicles that cost twice as much and have less range and a lot more downtime certainly says they’re not going to get the same delivery service in their area.
I’ve got 4,000,000 miles on the road. Ask me how I know a disaster is coming with the truck EV mandates
OK. I’ll bite.
How do you know a disaster is coming with the truck EV mandates?
😁
🙂
Watched a company who pledged all electric try a few out. They cost 3x that of a regular truck. They require more time to charge than promised. When it’s cold the range is diminished to under 200miles. One had to be rescued at a store by a shop truck with a diesel generator. The local power grid said they had neither the grid nor capacity to charge all the trucks the company wanted to convert to. One truck had to be shut down remotely because a fault indicated it was about to burst into flames from the batteries. It was cold, there was an accident and the truck sat in traffic long enough to run out of juice on the interstate which caused other drivers to refuse to run one anywhere.
The several the company got as testers were turned back in and oddly no-one is talking about converting the entire fleet anymore.
I haven’t gotten a cold for a decade, starting when I started using the Kroger self-checkout, avoiding annual high school food checkout clerk diseases.
Nah, I’m sure it’s just the vax, being all safe and effective.
You don’t wash your food before you eat it?
This won’t change things for wealthier neighborhood grocery stores- residents already order groceries online and store employees fill their orders and “e-cart” the result out to customers in the parking lot – or are shuttled by Uber-like grocery delivery taxis to their homes.
Raley’s, our local “upscale” grocery store, employs 7 full-timers to fill e-carts orders. And shelf prices there are already 15-20% higher than ordinary grocery stores, which means e-cart shoppers pay super-super-premium prices for their bread, milk and eggs etc.
Delivery cost not included.
Cento canned, peeled tomatoes, 28oz (1) $6.28.
Hunt’s canned, petite diced tomatoes 14.5oz (1) $3.56
That wouldn’t fly out here. We have two groceries: Basha’s and Safeway. Basha’s is too small to offer such a service, and Safeway is too crooked. At Safeway, nine out of ten of DW’s shopping trips end with an automatic trip to the customer service counter to correct one or more items that were rung up at other than the advertised price, or a discount coupon that mysteriously never got applied.
God forbid the elite spend any time with the normies!
Large East Coast food chain and not one of the upper crust ones does online shopping and will bring it out to your car. There is no additional charge for it so maybe it is a Raley’s thing?
We know that what makes our community safe is not more jail time and penalties.
That you think this is true should remove you from any position of authority or influence within your community. And you shouldn’t be allowed to have children.
They likely don’t have children anyway.
But if you told them they weren’t allowed, they’d have seven, just to spite you.
The thing is, I use the self-checkout because I can generally get through faster than if I rely on the low-paid* clerk. My time means something to me, so I use it to quickly scan my purchases and arrange them intelligently in the bags.
Having said that, a couple of local stores have trained their cashiers well and I don’t miss them not having self-checkout.
(* Note: I don’t necessarily think they should be paid more. But “low paid” often equates to “lack of motivation to do anything well.”)
Exactly! Never a line for self-checkout at our local Costco or Safeway. Saves a ton of time.
Wife and I love the self checkout not only at the grocery store but also WalMart when we go. Surly and rude checkout people are no more for us and we get out in far less time.
I fail to see how the state has the power to make such demands of businesses. I’m not saying that that would stop the commies in Cali, but no state has the power to make such asinine dictats to private businesses.
The moral right? No. But the power, yes, they do. Remember that states are not limited to enumerated powers. They have a general police power to do anything that isn’t specifically forbidden to them.
Great. Now if you have 11 items at the self-checkout it is a crime instead of not adhering to a store policy. Will it be upgraded to “aggravated” if you have 20 items?
Gotta love California.
There’s an easy fix for that – just call the extras “undocumented items.”
Everyone knows that whatever is “undocumented” gets to bypass all the usual rules & regs.
I think the people behind you will mete out swift justice.
reparations by any means necessary
News link for those commenters who don’t believe self check theft is significant problem:
https://nypost.com/2024/05/10/us-news/target-thief-aziza-graves-used-self-checkout-to-steal-over-60k-in-items/
I am totally against self checkouts. But isn’t this one trend that will stand or fall on consumer preference?
And snarky comment here. Making retail theft more difficult by forcing those who prefer just to scam the self checkout to be more open and brazen certainly means more arrests. Such arrests will likely disproportionately impact certain demographics. How can we not see the inherent racism in that system?
Is there nothing the man won’t do to keep a sister down?
Next up in California will be a bill requiring minimum staffing levels in establishments that serve food. No more kiosk orders that you pick up at a counter without needing a server to take your order and bring it to you.
I have family in Pennsylvania. The local Sheetz has virtually everything done by self service and kiosk order. The food is prepared by relatively competent people.
Most customers use self checkout.
There would be a revolt if Sheetz forced customer interaction!
This act will protect workers and the public by ensuring safe staffing levels at grocery and drug stores and regulating self-checkout machines in a way that’s being smart on crime
Until white employees start calling the cops on black shoplifters. Then get ready for more St George of Floyd-style riots.
Interesting you should mention that. Walgreens in SF hired private security due to rampant shoplifting, because police would never come when employees called 911. Typical day in SF one shoplifting incident per hour per drugstore. The homeless junkies pick the shelves clean. The security guard confronted shoplifter who was black tranny. The shoplifter rushed the guard. The guard shot and killed the shoplifter. So City of SF then passed new law that private security can’t carry gun. There is no deterrent to shoplifting in CA. The entire state is wide open for looting.
Unions don’t care if businesses get put out of work and workers get fired.
They only care about wha’ts good for the UNION, not the worker or the business.