Don’t be a Karen when it comes to shoplifters

1. I’m waiting for the first organized food raids. I wonder if Adrian Orr sits at his big desk pencil and pad doodling figures and equations increase interest rates by x = decrease inflation by y = increase unemployment by z =increase social division by ? There are 2 belief systems in the world held up only by thin air and faith the belief in God and the belief in money There are 2 things only out of thousands of items that supermarkets won’t let you choose with your own hands cigarettes and pots of kina go figure

2. If you are robbing the grocery store instead of the bank, clearly you are very poor! (Or perhaps just the dumbest burglar ever.)

   We can’t let the Labour Party off the hook with this one. They are totally disinterested in bringing back the high wage jobs, have no plans for slum clearance, still support the abolition of the Full Employment Policy and the Award System, and their management of state housing has been a total failure.

   If millions of people are suffering from collapsing wages (or none at all), you’ll never have enough policemen to shoot them all.

   • People don’t rob banks anymore. It’s too hard, you generally get very little, you’ll most likely get caught and you’ll probably get a prison sentence as a result (at least you should, especially if you use a firearm, which you will almost certainly need for a robbery to work).

     However, if you steal from a supermarket, you are less likely to get caught, because no one will stop you & you can always punch the trolley jockey if they try to stop you, targeting high value goods make for a reasonable risk/reward equation, plus if/when you get caught, you will most likely just get home detention, which will make little difference to your wastrel

     • People don’t rob banks because these days all they’d get is data. And the odd watch or gold ring from bored staff members.

   • Very difficult to storm into the bank and carry out those ones and zeros in the computer. They dont hold paper except the mortgages.

     • Easier to use a computer & a phishing rod.

3. I’m behind this 100%, I worked a supermarket back when you could chase them down the street – not a single one of them was because they were hungry.

   • Security guards for shoplifters and ave Police for wife beaters.

4. I’m surprised no one has been ram raiding supermarkets yet. Surely only a matter of time.

   • Too much effort to be running around a large supermarket?

   • 12 year olds can’t cook.

5. See a crime, report it.
   Hear/see violence, report it.
   See something suspicious, report it.
   Dumped rubbish, trolleys etc, report it.
   If you tolerate crime etc, it will become your reality.

   Safer communities together.

6. Called the Police on our neighbors last, did I save a life? Who knows.

   Don’t tolerate violence in our communities.

   • Michelle Sinclair. My Asian immigrant neighbours bring home supermarket trolleys and leave them askew outside their door for weeks at a time so that our shared driveway resembles a Mumbai slum.

     I’ve twice wheeled them back myself but last time I found the trolley was too heavy to lift out of the ditch. Yesterday I told another immigrant neighbour that the trolley sitting days on the front lawn was supermarket property, that they cost $600 each, shouldn’t be left outside to rust, and cost the supermarket $40,000 a year to replace. It’s endemic in my street. Another couple just push their empty trolley down their drive and I’ve watched one emerge and hit a parked car.

     I’ve been advised to phone the police when hearing the first couple engaged in prolonged shouting at their young son, and at each other. She’s training to be an early childhood teacher. He’s loud and brash. They would know it was me. They have the biggest costliest car in the neighbourhood.

     The supermarket manager said that they’re limited in what they can do when the trollies are on private property, but a young employee regularly walks the street collecting the trolleys dumped by the roadside.

     • Our new landlords have turned what was a quiet set of family-friendly units into a slum. Noise/music at all times, domestic violence, drug dealing, gang members, armed criminals, building damage, rubbish, abandoned supermarket trolleys, free roaming (& crapping) dogs, crowded units, people sleeping in garages & cars.

       Apparently the landlords are providing housing to social agencies, guaranteed paid rents and the tenants that are fussy about the rundown, quake damaged units. We were in before the new landlords took over and they’ve had a really negative effect on all the surrounding neighbours. There is plenty of adjacent social housing, but our building has become a dumping ground for scum & villainy. Ruins an otherwise lovely & pleasant area.

       • Michelle Sinclair I was viewing a place in a lovely spot, formerly motels, in Mt Victoria, Wellington, when the current tenant, an American guy, arrived home.

         The agent had told me how a previous occupant of this block had written a novel while living there. The tenant regaled me with tales of noisy anti-social neighbours, and how useless Wellington City Council’s Noise Control is, whom he had called numerous times, which is also my experience of them. Nothing gets done.Why should it, when it’s not experienced by the councillors themselves, too busy promoting Te Reo, and painting rainbow pedestrian crossings to show how inclusive they are ?

         • Noise control do a reasonable job here, especially if they get multiple complaints from different people. One group lost their sound system to noise control a few weeks back, so persistence pays, and putting up with it just makes it worse.

           The Police generally arrive quickly when I call, especially if there is violence involved, and they are generally armed. We had the interesting experience of witnessing them parking their vehicle around the corner, 4 officers got out and chamber rounds in their Glocks before visiting some of our neighbours. The major drug dealers left in handcuffs and we are working on evictions for another group of troublemakers with the property manager, so communities working together does have an effect.

           I pick up the trash, get trolleys moved, weed the gardens, mow the berm and generally try to keep the place tidy, so it doesn’t look like a dumping ground. Hopefully when the earthquake repairs get done, we might get a better class of tenants.

7. We need a policy like they have in Saudi Arabia for theft.

   First offence the amputation of the right arm
   Second offense the right leg.
   Third offense the decapitation of the head

   Then we’ll have a booming prosthetic arm and leg business.

8. appeasing criminals never works

9. hard disagree. Stealing a loaf of bread and half a chicken is stealing to eat. Stealing a full trolly with goods, it simply theft, and we all pay for that. So Nope. Fuck that shit.

   • Reactionary Brat Agree.

10. I agree, Stuff the supermarkets – they make plenty of profits and are more criminal that the shop lifters in many cases, with overpriced and increasingly, expired goods!

    Also agree that poorly trained staff arresting people is not the answer.

    BUT it’s got to the point where taking stuff is mainstream now. Want some food or goods, break into your neighbours and help yourself.

    Need groceries, just load up trolleys and then walk out – they are the ones threatening staff.

    Need transport, steal a car.

    Want ciggies, hold up the local dairy or like the horrendous article from yesterday, knock of the neighbours door and then proceed to stab and beat her for not giving you a cigarette in your Kainga ora house while on parole for other crimes.

    We are now a long way from a kid stealing a pint of milk or some nappies from the Dairy because they need them.

    40 years ago nobody locked their doors – people would deliver milk in glass bottles and leave money for it on the street – nobody took it. Society is not getting more honest, but allowing dishonesty to be the norm by it’s acceptance of it.

    The signs are already there, due to extreme levels of entitlement from certain people in NZ who are escalating from stealing to harming others. (The dairy murder, the teenager who broke into the farmer pensioners house to steal his car 4 times). Likewise the terrorism, where foreign nationals actually come to NZ to carry out their terror plans and training as we are a soft touch and then our politicians blame middle NZ!

    What is the bet the women that loaded up the trolleys are also bludging off the state – now a lifestyle! Can someone please donate them some weight watchers along with the food parcels – more and more are not exercising, not working, drinking, with obesity and diabetes on the hoof- ready to take up that next hospital bed – while complaining how hard their life is.

    I mean who can blame them, with the free supermarkets now for certain people – some are deserving with disabilities – but you also get the feeling that many just expect others to provide for them drugs, food, accomodation, and make it easier and easier for this to happen.

    I would prefer the focus on making food more affordable for all and wages higher, and for those that have disabilities getting a higher standard of living by getting rid of those who are life styling on benefits? Work 40+ hours on low wages and then complain – I have a lot more sympathy!

    Went to Rotorua. Previously has seen very few beggars there. Now not only are there so many beggars everywhere, they actually are coming into the restaurants and going around the tables asking for money. For a tourist town, it’s not really a good look.

    Last month a youth was going around restaurants in St Heliers after he had just stabbed a random passerby. When the staff asked if they could help him, he told them he was waiting for police. The guy was young – in his 20’s apparently.

    • “40 years ago nobody locked their doors – people would deliver milk in glass bottles and leave money for it on the street – nobody took it.”
      I wonder if that 40 year period just happens to coincide with the imposition of neoliberalism on NZ?

      • In one Tony!

      • 40 years ago we locked our doors and still got burgled twice in three years and the local ferals were constantly stealing the milk bottle money so no idea what part of paradise you lived in but it definitely wasn’t Mt Albert.

    • snz reference for foreign terrorists coming here to train please
      …unless of course you mean a white australian rightwing nutter murdering muslims….

      • Who else? NZ needs the same deportation and immigration policy as Australia to help get rid of their scum here. Not just terror, Aussies caught with all the Meth for example in NZ – we are a soft touch for any foreign criminal as well as our own burgeoning numbers of home grown crims.

        Of the three most dangerous crims that have special prisons made for them in NZ, 2 are foreign born (Australia, Tonga, NZ). We can’t deport the locals but we should at least try to get rid of the foreign crims, at the first sign of criminal activity in NZ to safeguard victims and to stop the amount of justice and prison space being spent on high needs, non NZ citizens here – let their own country rehabilitate/imprison them. We have enough of our own.

        Maybe then the police can spare some time to stop the random beatings and attend the police stations in weekends if they were not so stretched with repeat offenders and speeding tickets?

        Labours virtue signalling of criminal lovers is not very popular apart from with Pro crime Green supporters who are probably too unreliable to turn up at election time.

        Knowing more than one working folks, who now have brain injuries and will never work again from random street beatings, isn’t exactly pretty. Labour used to be against that.

        • no snz YOU tell me who else…you made the statement shit or get off the pot

          • Wasn’t one foreign terrorist enough for you? How about the murderous scum shot in supermarket? At least we didn’t waste more money on him putting him in prison, still he should have been deported well before he hurt anyone.

            • Woke don’t class Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen as a terrorist as he only knifed and tried to kill middle NZ which under a set of complex woke rules around identity must be cancelled and never mentioned as being terror act.

              • He was just misunderstood and oppressed, wasn’t he. Sad ;(

    • Oooooh in St Hellieeers darling what was the scoundrel doing there lol.

      • Apparently knifing someone. Just another day in Nu Zilland.

        Not just AK, this 60yo gets beaten up for no reason. The police apparently take half an hour to arrive at their own police station. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/whangarei-man-dragged-from-car-beaten-and-robbed-on-way-home-from-work/GQZQYZJGXFBCJKYQXLTA45R6HY/

        If government want to know where the missing workers are, it is astonishing the amount of people who are randomly beaten up in NZ and then often can’t work afterwards – the beatings disable them for life. Hopefully not in this man’s case – but could be where all the missing workers are, in between the unemployed thugs beating up people to the victims beaten up and not able to work anymore.

        You can import more people to work in NZ, but if it’s now a lifestyle to go around robbing and beating up random strangers and out of control behaviour that seems to be empowered by the government and police inactivity on this. Hugs and millions of money to gangs and indifference to constant crime, aren’t helping.

11. Hahah, this is hilarious. These crooks are seriously trying to blame their windfall profits on shoplifters.

12. If you check, you’d probably find that the ferals doing most of this blatant style of shoplifting, are well aware of their rights & entitlements, and are most likely already being heavily supported by the Government & various social agencies. They aren’t struggling to put food on the table, whilst working 2 or 3 low paid jobs, or they wouldn’t have the time to do this kind of stuff.

    • Exactly. The problem is not that they don’t have enough money to feed themselves, the problem is that they know they can get away with committing crime. As an analogy, wealthy white-collar criminals also usually don’t really need the extra money they steal either – the reason they commit crime is because they are immoral plus they know there is a good chance they won’t face any consequences. Exactly the same as these people brazenly stealing groceries. Moral people refrain from theft because theft is wrong; immoral people steal because they don’t care that theft is wrong.

      It is a safe bet that the taxpayer already funds the majority of these people through the welfare system, and that, if they are short of cash at all, it’s because they piss it against the wall and waste it on all manner of luxuries that shouldn’t even be considered until after the essentials are taken are taken care of. Poverty is a mindset usually.

13. The same people who don’t care about theft from supermarkets will complain when they put the prices up to pay for it. One solution could be a dated QR code on the receipt. If it isn’t scanned the door doesn’t open unless by an attendant. The only reason supermarkets don’t have more in your face security measures is they are reluctant to spoil the shopping experience. They need to do their part so increasing prices to cover losses isn’t necessary.

    • ” they are reluctant to spoil the shopping experience.”

      Hasn’t been a pleasant experience imho for some time.

      I always leave after a grocery shop paying more for less and that includes the packaging that seems to be shrinking and the retail price is climbing with the feeling I have been stiffed.

      Now that plastic bags have disappeared for packing your produce in that has opened up an opportunity know for Countdown to charge $1.70 for a bundle to replace what used to be free to the shopper and more for the larger bags to carry it all in , this of course has been in place for some time.

      I don’t condone theft full stop but the big corporations seem to get away with it legally through extortion to deliver them greater and larger profits.

      I am looking forward to the bread and butter maestro re visiting the whole limp fisted supermarket review and making some serious changes which will be electorally popular.

14. What an odd Post @ MB..? I’m not sure how I feel about any of it so well done for confusing the fuck out of me.
    I think you could have started at the top, so to speak, then, worked your way down to street level.
    Our Kiwi Kriminals are pocketing the money from the supermarket cartels, example Progressive Enterprises and Foodstuffs and are worthy of closer inspection in my humble opinion. Perhaps Chippies bestie, now invited invited beyond the lobby influence’r, could help with that?
    Lets start with ronnie and let’s finish with his besties. Never mind pitting street level people against each other. Let’s go right to the top of the Kiwi-As shit heap. Aye Boys?
    COLES MYER BUYS PROGRESSIVE IN $427M NZ PUSH
    https://www.afr.com/politics/coles-myer-buys-progressive-in-427m-nz-push-19880330-k2ovj
    Just like that pony tail was to jonky, you’re becoming tantalisingly close to the truth of it @ MB
    An independent royal commission of Inquiry please?
    And why an independent inquiry? Independent of bent little AO/NZ with its bent little business people doing bent little business deals. Re street level crimes born of poverty and social detachment, there’s a saying. The rot in the fish starts at the head. https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-head-down.html
    It’s about here that our farmers need to be reminded, perhaps, of exactly who’s money it is that the festering little kiwi crooks up on the pointy end of the shit-heap wade waist deep through who, by the consequences of their actions, manufacture the street level dysfunction, desperation and despair we’re privy to, and often the victims of, because we don’t live in blissful detachment in our Parnell Mansions with a second or third in Australia etc.
    Aye Boys?

15. The rise of vigilanteism is Nye. We will see it because of the pressures out there. Police are not tough enough for the Karen’s.

16. and of course the ‘security assosiation’ won’t make a penny out of the moral panic….the duopoly can easily absorb shrinkage in their million bucks a day EXCESS profits but CHOOSE to pass it on

17. Had to laugh the other day. A shop cop in countdown ponsonby was following me around the shop so I stopped and started talking to him. He was uncomfortable. He moved on so I followed him! For the next 5 to 10 minutes until he bailed through the checkout!

    Countdown are like the Stasi.

18. You are completely wrong! There is no excuse for crookery whether you are rich or poor. Nobody in NZ is as poor as my post-depression grandparents who lost their all, except their honesty. People just don’t know how to manage their lives in this country, because we constantly cry “Poor you!” that is the worst we can take from them – their confidence and self-esteem. You make me sick.

19. People don’t rob banks anymore. It’s too hard, you generally get very little, you’ll most likely get caught and you’ll probably get a prison sentence as a result (at least you should, especially if you use a firearm, which you will almost certainly need for a robbery to work).

    However, if you steal from a supermarket, you are less likely to get caught, because no one will stop you & you can always punch the trolley jockey if they try to stop you, targeting high value goods make for a reasonable risk/reward equation, plus if/when you get caught, you will most likely just get home detention, which will make little difference to your wastrel lifestyle. You can also claim poverty to get a reduced sentence.

    • People don’t rob banks, banks rob you.

20. Sadly DM that’s where we are and who do we have to thank for that?

21. fwiw
    Our local New World have recently removed all Gregg’s herb/spice products from their shelves.
    Apparently because the company wouldn’t comply, so it’s claimed, with some extortionist demand for Gregg’s to lower wholesale pricing. Gregg’s spice products were already very competitive in comparison to the more expensive one still on the shelf. So, the loss is the consumer’s detriment.
    NZers have been buying this line of products for many generations, it’s not a good look.

22. Typical Martyn.
    Its never the crims fault, they just need more of our money.
    People have had a gutsful of these filth and thats all they are.
    They are stealing because there are no consequences, unless it escalates to the point that some poor shop keep gets stabbed to death and even then it will be off to Club Corrections for free meals and coddling.

    • Absolutely Jays.

    • Absolutely Jays.

23. Labour protects the criminals, while ACT protect the law-abiding. Which would you prefer?

    • Unfortunately, criminals and other malcontents also get a vote; the left would never be in power again if they didn’t.

24. Have you looked at what is in those trolleys Martyn?? Beer, Wine, Meat …they are trading it for goods, such as tobacco, and P…time to knock it on the head

25. jays, and how much do you contribute to your local foodbank…if people are desperate they do desperate shit….moral right or wrong doesn’t come into hunger.

    • New Zealand is in a dreadful state when people have to rely on food banks.
      Thought Ardern’s Labour Government promised to fix that but instead they’ve made it worse.

26. FFS – lol @ all the soft on crime rhetoric that totally misses the point. Ring the effing cops like everyone else has too. Private police force is just a step away from fascism. Security thugs can go and get fucked.

27. Arrest the shoplifters. Charge them, take them to court and let the judge decide if they were stealing out of hunger.

    You see in NZ you can go to food bank, the soup kitchen and/or family can help you out.

    The moral code in our country has gone down the gurglar. Hell my parents lived through the depression when people went hungry and no one stole

28. Fifty years ago as 14 year old on the way to my milk run I got heavily bailed up against a wall by the plods because the new milk boy I was training had raided all the coins from the milk bottles on his way to work. The good old days.

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