By MIKE MANGAS, ADAM ROBINSON, KRCR
REDDING, Calif. — What could be the birth of a statewide protest began in Redding today by small business owners who say they’re fed up with unabated shoplifting in their stores.
A group of small business owners, employees, friends and family members gathered in front of the Shasta County Administration Building on Court Street in Redding protesting Senate Bill 553—a bill in the legislature that would require training for employees and require them not to confront shoplifters who already are charged with a misdemeanor for stealing anything worth less than $950.
Jazz Sahota owns Circle K Markets in Redding, and he says this could make him, or his employees, the criminals.
“So if a shoplifter comes to your store, they can steal anything. If you’re employee tried to stop them, and confrontation or even just nicely stopping them, the shoplifter or thief, if they get hurt, the person who is stopping them, whether it’s the owner or the employee, they are the felons,” Sahota explained to KRCR at the protest on Monday.
Inflation, yes, but Jag Randhawa says prices are higher because the public is paying for the store’s stolen inventory.
“They talk about that all the time, inflation, when milk is like six bucks. We have the same cows and we have the same milk, and we have the same bread and butter, [but] why the price so high? The price is high because shoplifters. They’re shoplifting and the storeowners, for compensation…have to raise the price—jack up the price. Every other person, like regular people who have jobs and they pay, they pay for other people too,” Randhawa told KRCR on Monday.
This protest is starting in Redding, but they have a protest scheduled for the capitol building in Sacramento on Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 16, where they say they’re getting support from small business owners up and down the state.
