Don’t think she’s dealing with a full deck. Either needed a fix or off her meds.
Maybe because she tried to assault him to get away with the goods?
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Stores have compliance numbers to deal with. X amount of items sold, X amount of rewards cards or credit cards opened, etc. And their loss rate is also taken into consideration, a store with a high loss rate gets dinged and can even cause for them to get less money from corporate, which means less shifts available. This sucks especially during busy seasons.
Every business innately has to deal with “shrinkage” in stock. either through theft, items breaking or being unsellable, and returned items. However there is incentive for trying to keep this loss low, though more often than not shoplifting is not worth getting into altercations unless they clearly trying to walk about with a high number of items.
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Shouldn’t that be “Experience you speak from, Obi-Wan?”
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Okay, everybody. Take notes.
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EMPLOYEE: "You’re shoplifting, you can’t shoplift here!"
THE ACCUSED: "Yeah? Why not?"
EMPLOYEE: (momentarily baffled) “Wh… Why not?”
It’s like something from a David O. Russell film.
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In unison. And the proper action. They planned this out well.
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And that is why we can’t have nice things.
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Ah, a local. I did some loss prevention down at the Real Canadian Superstore at Metrotown when I was 18. Lost all faith in humanity. For this one week I had, zero training. Not even a little. I was told to walk up and down the aisles. Maybe training was week 2 but I never got there. In one week…
- Several old ladies (80+). Stolen meat. I reported none. Yes, I was very bad at this job.
- 30-something Asian man. Wearing a leather duster on an hot August day. I pass him in the aisle. I take notice and swing around the end of another aisle. Now I see him but now he has his shirt under the duster rolled up on itself with something underneath. Our eyes meet. He books it. A couple other LP and I catch up to him outside. And as soon as my coworker touches his shoulder more than 100 lipstick and nail polish fall out.
- Drug users getting their kids to steal and take the good back to the crime…er I mean SkyTrain.
- One lady got pulled into back room for stealing some chocolate bars. Acts a bit like this lady and then pisses and shits herself all over the place.
I didn’t even go collect a paycheck. Just walked away one day. Made my soul hurt.
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Depends on how bad the coffee was.
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Seriously. I wonder if she needed to get arrested. Some other drama we don’t know about?
Good question. 
Couple times I’ve ever done retail work, my response would be “Fuck it. It ain’t MY stuff they’re nicking.” or possibly “Hey, err, stop. Or I’ll have to, I dunno, ask you to stop again.” depending on how keen I was feeling.
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I live around those parts…I have to ask which cafe?
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I understand not wanting to defend the stuff of a large corporation who’s probably not paying one very well, especially if one’s personal safety is at risk, but I do think it’s important to consider larger cultural forces at stake. Just like with civil/human rights, defending others’ is also creating the culture and good will in which others will defend ours. I think we all have a stake in creating an atmosphere in which theft is not tolerated, which means occasionally sticking our neck out for someone else, even when the victims aren’t sympathetic.
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I think LP in general will lower one’s faith in humanity. I’ve heard of grandmas going into retail stores and getting their grandchildren to do most of the shoplifting for them.
Also heard about a lady that put on like 10 layers worth of stolen clothes on her. She got busted on her way out by LP and she immediately started taking it all off while running out the door… the loss prevention person just let them go because they didnt want to deal with someone crazy enough to start stripping.
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Dunno about you, but I wasn’t paid nearly enough for that. 
Then again, having had to resort to nicking stuff to make ends meet, pretty sure I’ve got a raging case of bias.
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Used to work at a large local record store (larger than more suburban chain music stores, back when music store chains were actually a thing).
LP was taken seriously. They didn’t expect all employees to go hands on, just to be aware and watching and to put out the code over the radio, and when you did there were certain managers who would come flying over the counter.
Minor property crime is distressing, shoplifting from megacorp is a lame distributed evil that hits all customers, but much of the same attitude also leads to stolen bikes, car break ins, etc, which really do sting individuals and is nearly punishment free.
Hearing about grannies stealing meat though…what a gut punch.
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Blenz, Denman and Barclay in the West End. I’ve witnessed all manner of craziness down there. One night I left and as I started my car, someone started banging on the window and screaming at me. I, stupidly, got out of vehicle with one of my hockey sticks (I’d been playing earlier at the rink across the street). I broke the $150 stick across his knees and when that didn’t stop him from coming at me, knocked him cold with a punch to the head. On another occasion, again late at night, I intervened when a husky blonde woman was wailing away on a taxi driver at Robson and Denman. Turns out she was a heavily drugged he. As someone once told me, nothing good happens after midnight.
Edit: Let me just say that I’m not proud of the episode with the hockey stick. I could have just stayed in my car and driven away. Instead I chose to escalate the situation and ended up knocking someone unconscious. It’s conceivable that he could have died.
The only things missing were a rubber mask, and someone shaking their fist in the air.
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