I was at my local Supermarket a few weeks ago and two very flamboyant Whanau from the street were performing this wonderful modern ballet where one would lash out at curious onlookers and nervous staff members as if the attention to their over the top attention seeking actions and accusations to the security cameras that people were looking at them as if they were thieves WHILE their companion quietly shoplifted food under their jacket was as Prince once put it, ‘a sign of the times’.
They then barged through the self check out and staff angrily called out to them, but they know the laws and the rules and no one can touch them.
The saucy confidence of the louder one who attracted the attention and the shameful down head shuffling of the person doing the shoplifting were a yin and yang of modern inequality.
A few of the other male shoppers looked at me as this occurred to see if I was going to do something. I’m assuming this was because I was the largest of the males there and they were looking for agreement and leadership to intervene, but I have very clear rules on this sort of thing, and I shrugged and said to them, “Some people are pretty desperate these days”, and wheeled my shopping trolly away.
I have zero interest in damning hungry people stealing food.
Right now we have the highest food inflation in 30 years, people are desperate and shameless inn their desperation. The Supermarket duopoly price gouge the bejesus out of us, and I’m sure as fuck not going to fight for the profit margins of the NZ Supermarket duopoly!
Now this equation changes immediately if these two scamps had in fact stolen something from an individual who was in the supermarket.
In that case, you have an obligation to step in and demand the item back from the individual they stole it from, but a company?
Fuck the company.
Likewise with ram raids. I’m not getting in between Micheal Hill Jewellers and some desperate kids, but if they are attacking a Dairy owner, then I think you have an obligation to step in or call the Police and then film the event so there is evidence.
The same is true in public, if people are attacking someone else, you have an obligation to step in to halt the violence, our call the Police and then film things with your camera for evidence.
We should not tolerate crime, but I think we also have to be very clear on our reasons for stepping up to it.
Hungry people stealing food from greedy Supermarkets? I’m not lifting a finger to stop them.
Desperate people stealing from a large retail chain? I’m not directly stopping them, but I’m calling the cops and filming it for the cops.
Desperate people stealing from a large retail store hurting people? Oh you have to step in at that point, to stop violence.
Desperate people ram raiding a dairy? I’m not directly stopping them, but I’m calling the cops and filming it for the cops.
Desperate people ram raiding a dairy and physically hurting staff? Oh you have to step in at that point, to stop violence.
Dickheads starting violence in public? Call Cops and film evidence but if you are physically able – step in and stop it, because we have obligations to each others safety when we are in public.
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Are you absolutely sure that those people were in fact ‘desperate’?
Were they old enough to be parents trying to feed their children – after going without themselves?
Or could they simply be young thieves who know our ‘catch and release’ District Courts can’t be bothered?
My first thought Ada.
In his next post Martyn will be blaming the supermarkets for the high price of groceries. In the end we all pay.
This sort of behaviour is similar to what’s playing out in Democrat run cities in the USA. The result is that shops are closing down, jobs are being lost and the working & middle classes are abandoning these places for sane States like Texas and Florida. So bad is it that U Haul is offering a 41% discount on trailer hires going the other way. In our case the equivalent is a one-way ticket to Aussie.
Well Andrew let’s clear one thing up, there is nothing sane about Florida. De Santis has managed to f things up royally for any one employing migrant labour. He is f’ing arshole.
That said I think it’s bullshit to accept shoplifting in Supermarkets. Get their prices down sure but don’t tell me allowing people to steal is going to help. You have no way of knowing the circumstances of these people
I’m pretty sure super duopolies are price gouging
Well said Andrew.
“This sort of behaviour is similar to what’s playing out in Democrat run cities in the USA. ”
Rubbish. The lowest scoring socio-economic states and cities in USA are Republican run and have been for years. Due to their infantile love affair with guns they are also generally the most violent.
Hahahaha. I don’t mind gaslighting when it’s intelligent but this sort of brain-dead effort hives it a bad name. Here’s what’s going to happen after the 2030 census, following on from what happened after the 2010 and 2020 ones.
https://imgflip.com/i/7ngaca
People are fleeing Democrat shitholes, starting with the CBD’s of Democrat One Party places like SF, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Baltimore, then extending to the rest of the States where they’re located.
And they’re heading for lowest scoring socio-economic states… that are also … generally the most violent
The really good news is that it means less political power for Democrats. The bad news is that the likes of the Democrat Socialists of America are starting to hurt the Dems in places like LA and SF – at least according to Jacobin.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH…..
do you think those areas happen to vote dem because they know the reps have nothing to offer them christie
texas and florida are shining examples of the white city on a hill run by reps ? YER RIGHT
… the white city on a hill…
Yawn. i’d have expected a Marxist at least to not be this stupid. The other day the NAACP issued a supposed travel warning for Blacks traveling to Florida because its “… Openly Hostile to African Americans’.
Oooooo…. scary. Just a couple of problems with that:
Florida by contrast, with a Black population of 3.3 million, has the second largest number of Black businesses in the nation. The chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors is himself a Florida resident!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH…..
Take note Marxist is used in a million comments it’s cringe. We can’t be the best food produce in the region while people go hungry it’s just wrong. The economics don’t line up with anything but Hitler’s dreams.
andrew as you know only too well the duopoly is doing kiwis without even a reach around or lube….there is NO DENYING that
as for ‘democrat run cities’ fox news op ed pieces just don’t fly
Ada. Saw a small ambulatory child uplift a packet of fancy biscuits and hide it in the tray of the baby buggy her mum was pushing. Did nothing except to say to the kiddie that I hoped she’d be producing that packet at the checkout. Maybe I should have spoken to the mother, or to a supervisor; I was taken aback – the child was very artful, and at least she now knows that she was seen.
Don’t report them you may get beaten up and they will get off anyway.
San Francisco is now such a lawless hellhole that many large chain stores are simply packing up and leaving the downtown area for good.
The downtown Target store there has enclosed most of the shelves behind locked perspex doors.
Locally, David Jones, Arthur Barnett and H. & J. Smith have all left for good — leaving only two cities with a mainline department store. A sign of very bad economic times (and neglect by the politicians).
Back in the days of actual customer service, everything was behind a counter, and every row of shelves had an assistant to fetch it for you. Of course, the monopolies are too stingy to consider bringing that back!
Wish there was something we could do for the States, maybe send in the troops to liberate them from these horrors, bombard them with freedom and democracy, or even sanction their kids to show how much we care.
We in New Zealand need help much more so than those in the United States, the leaders of the free world, of democracy.
Martyn – Criminals shoplift wine, beer, meat – so they can trade it for drugs, or money at deep discounts…not hunger!
Stealing food cause hungry is a different thing then casually loading up a trolly full of goods and walking out with it.
Problem is that making shop lifting an acceptable practice means the end of shops. If everyone gets “desperate” what chance a shop staying open and replenishing the shelves for the “desperate” to be able to feed the kids tomorrow?
Ransack a shop today and where will you get your food tomorrow? And why stop at food? Need new clothes? Shop lift. Need a new TV? Shoplift.
A lesson in shop closures being learned in Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
https://nypost.com/2023/03/06/walmart-to-close-remaining-portland-stores-as-city-faces-shoplifting-crisis/
As a sovereign sheriff, I try, convict & execute criminals on the spot. I am justice!
As a sovereign sheriff, I try, convict & execute criminals on the spot. I am justice!
Unless you are armed & authorized to use force, you are generally better not to intervene, unless there is an imminent risk to others. Most offenders will be armed & will use violence to avoid arrest. Take photos or video, most likely the offenders will be known to Police & can be arrested later.
Super markets are an example of ‘choke capitalism’ where the supermarket is both a monopolist and a monopsonist’ (Monopoly buyer) in control of paying for goods and pricing of sales.
This is where it ends:
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300888716/youths-who-beat-78yearold-in-home-and-left-him-for-dead-avoid-jail–heres-why
Martyn I don’t agree with your article this time.
Your readers have a better understanding than you on this matter.
No offense to you Martyn but that’s how I see it.
Yeh sure Mr Ying and Mr Yang may have got out of the supermarket with some goodies but their faces will have been on the CCTV and then that footage will be passed on to the cops. So did the story really end with ying and yang triumphantly riding off into the sunset?
I’m torn on this issue. On the one hand I can see why some people would turn to crime because things are so expensive BUT is enabling criminals to do their “work” really the right thing to do? Poor people not only shop at supermarkets but also work there too and on minimum wage: who is thinking of the workers in this situation? Is it fair on them that they are on the frontline of the poverty war?
Do I have a solution? Why yes I do. Destroy unbridled capitalism and the need for companies to make a new record profit every passing year. Replace it with a system them allows all people to have a fair slice of the pie rather than the majority of wealth being in the hands of a rich minority.
How do we get to this new way of living? sadly I have no idea as everything seems so far gone these days. maybe it all has to burn to the ground before something better can replace it….which brings us back to stealing from supermarkets …
What NZ are you living in? No, the police won’t be informed because retailers know that’s a 100% waste of time. Its consequence free, and pure entitlement by the criminals who do this
I’m from Kazakhstan please forgive me
Would they still steal if the product s we’re cheap ? Probably yes. Its actually as much about as having respect for the staff. They are not rich like the owners and company executive s.
You’re all wrong.
One of the essential tenets of neoliberalism, as Thatcher once put it, is there is no such thing as a community. No one has any obligation to help anyone else and we’re all the authors of our own problems.
Apart from assisting corporations and government departments (especially the Police) the great unwashed are simply expected to slave away for fuck all and pay all the taxes that God sends, and obey the laws that get put down to protect the wealthy.
Thirty years of this jungle bullshit has effectively destroyed whatever community we may have once had.
Get used to it if you put National/ACT into government…
” One of the essential tenets of neoliberalism, as Thatcher once put it, is there is no such thing as a community. ”
Correction she said society.
And its no different in the U.K now under the Tories or “NEW “Labour.
One of her governments most enduring legacies and Roger and Ruth’s excuse for austerity… dismantling privilege.
J S Bark There is a community, and it exists in spite of the government, and it subsidises the government, by providing for the poor and needy, who, often through no fault of their own, are trapped in poverty, and described as bottom feeders and rivers of filth by the fools on the hill so detached from reality, that they have no idea that they are. In my town it’s the Salvation Army and church groups who provide free meals, and tables of food for all comers, and volunteers working in charity shops, and the shoppers who donate to the charity bin in the supermarket, and without them bleak lives would be bleaker than they are, and government departments like WINZ have the nerve to direct their “clients” to the free food banks, because they know that without them some would struggle to put food on their cold tables or into their car boots or aunty’s chilly garage or cold shed.
The definition of ‘crime’ is a funny ol banana ain’t it?
A desperado steals shit from a supermarket and all Hell breaks loose but if one of the nine multi billionaires steal our stuff then on-sell it and bingo, another billion so it’s knighthoods all round. Then them four foreign owned bankster motherfuckers! They steal our money at a rate of about $180.00 a second in net profits annually after they played the RBNZ, and us by extension, to enable them to do so. Meanwhile, we mopes are too head fucked to make a stand.
Professor Stanley Milgram would be amused.
You write @ MB
“Desperate people stealing from a large retail store hurting people? Oh you have to step in at that point, to stop violence.” No one would though. We’d be paralysed with shock at the spectacle and that’s human nature.
Prof Stanley Milgram.
“Stanley Milgram’s teacher-learner experiment demonstrated that people tend to be obedient concerning authority figures, even if such obedience conflicts with people’s own morality. Milgram’s experiment consisted of teachers (voluntary participants) and learners (those knowing of the experiment).”
We, the humble pubic, would be better advised to make sure their taxes paid for systems including our politicians did what we pay them for, not what they like. Like feeding multi-billionaires and selling us out to Australian owned banks. No good will come from urban warfare tactics. Tons of good would come from chasing our arrogant, condescending, sell-out politicians down the street as they run while screaming.
the really interesting thing about the milgram experiment was it was supposed to give a baseline for further work investigating specifically why germans were seen to be at that time particularly subservient to ‘orders’ but the level of compliance amongst US students was so high the experiment was scrubbed
The biggest crime is capitalism, as analysed by marxists for a number of years. Private (ie.–elite minority) ownership of the means of production and finance capital robs people every day of their life.
At work “surplus value” as Marx and Engels put it, capitalism’s dirty little secret, means you have generated your minimum wage in possibly a couple of hours depending on industry or service. The boss then appropriates the rest of your days labour even though you think you are paid by the hour! Of course in Aotearoa NZ there is a huge aspirational SME, small business and self employed sector who would just love to be a 1%er but are in fact subservient to the banks.
I would never dob in a shoplifter hitting a corporate or chain enterprise. I have intervened for local markets and artisans who are the smallest of traders.
If people need to steal food does that not say something about our society?
I may be misquoting but didn’t some leader say capitalism is bad but the alternative is worse .
Setting yourself up as judge and jury is a small step in the slide to civil unrest that will undermine authority.
The well being of people worldwide has improved exponentially under capitalism.
Churchill said democracy is not perfect but it’s better than the alternatives.
P
Economists agree capitalism creates– inequality, market failure, damage to the environment, short-termism, excess materialism and boom and bust economic cycles.
The biggest crime is capitalism? Interesting. Bigger than Stalin’s purges of an estimated 1 million Russians? Bigger than Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, estimated to have caused between 15 and 55 millions death from famine?
What a load of rubbish. I’m glad I’m not your employer. I’m sure you’ve never been one.
As is so often it seems, the replies to this piece are more revealing of their authors’ than of any discourse on the topic. From price gouging corporations at one end to shoplifting kids at the other, Capitalist society is based on theft of one sort or another. But the worst theft is that of our ability to empathise and to see aberrant behaviour for what it signals. Today’s shoplifters are the pickpockets of yesterday’s Oliver Twist, and just as those discarded children were products of the terrible times in which they lived, so too are today’s miscreants. And if we can’t at least consider that likelihood, and start to seriously discuss its root causes, we’ll soon see more and more Bill Sykes’ roaming our communities.
There are plenty of “Bill Sykes” already. Gangs etc often use young people to commit crimes as they can’t be charged or if they are, their sentences are lighter.
Yes Sykes aplenty in New Zealand, it’s a lucrative business,with little repercussions if caught.
Yes. Ildiko Matskassy, a deceased colleague, finally decided to leave her husband, Ivan, when he had their schoolboy son Rocky, stealing to order. Ivan’s then restaurant on Courtney Place, was the selling and receiving place. At this point Ildiko was murdered, found floating in Wellington Harbour, and Ivan was acquitted of her murder, went to Australia. Since then Rocky was been killed in Australia, shot I think, but I don’t really know the circumstances. The Courtney Place restaurant was arsoned, and appeared on that police television program, never solved. The Hungarian lady who was with Ildiko when she bought the duvet cover found near her body, had her flat in Mt Victoria arsoned also. Very sad all round, because Ildiko was a good and proud mother.
” And if we can’t at least consider that likelihood, and start to seriously discuss its root causes, we’ll soon see more and more Bill Sykes’ roaming our communities.
The root cause would be government – currently a majority Labour held one – for failure to regulate food costs, remove GST from Food, build houses for the ‘unhoused’ or ‘homeless’, create decent schools with enough class rooms and teachers and two meals a day – compulsory not voluntary, and staff the schools with cooks too so that these two meals are not some left over air plane rubbsih, free dental, free gp visits – for any age as preventable care is cheaper then fixing something via an surgery, remove GST from electricity prices, regulate the energy market, free public transport .
But the people that you so bitterly complain about – the people that have lost their empathy blablabhabl, are the people that are currently being robbed, bashed, have their cars stolen, their houses broken into, can’t afford food despite working and paying tax etc etc etc.
Might i suggest that you leave the house for a few hours a day and go outside to smell the dandilion coffee- no one can afford the real stuff anymore.
All this ME under a Labour Government the authors of our present woes.
Thank you for pointing it out,albeit obvious.
I also suggest you get out a bit and stop your desktop nonsense.
Yeah they’re doing this type of model of San Francisco and New York, where you can steal anything up to $950 without any chance of prosecution (effectively the legalised theft that you are promoting in this blog entry). Crime of course is down (since stealing up to $950 is no longer a crime). It doesn’t create the sort of utopia you think, since no business can survive it for very long.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-shoplifters-theft-walgreens-decriminalized-11634678239
Same for Chicago. Which is why 40% of Michigan Avenue’s “Magnificent Mile” is empty and up for lease. My wife’s there at the moment and after a drive through reckons it could be higher.
It’s also why a twenty year veteran prosecutor recently quit, and with a scathing letter to his crime-friendly boss:
I will not raise my son here. I am fortunate to have the means to escape, so my entire family is leaving the State of Illinois. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and yet my own employer has turned it into a place from which I am no longer proud to be, and in which my son is not safe.
You can check the link for the detailed reasons, and marvel at how many of them are being employed here in NZ.
I’m not happy with condonement of shop-lifting in NZ. In the bigger towns there are soup kitchens that serve free dinners to all comers, every day of the year. One in my town inexplicably continues to serve the dinners as takeways – a covid hangover. It used to be sit-down, so homeless people and others in need could at least share a meal with a roof over their heads (a whole lot nicer, surely), and there was the possibility of second helpings.
a roof costs money, plates to be filled and eaten by strangers at a table need cleaning and storing away. So you need money to pay for the locale, and then you need your clean up crew volunteers. Take a way is easier and chances are cheaper as most soup kitchens/foodbanks are currently running short on both volunteers and money.
Maybe Mr. Bread and Butter will come to the aid and promise some bread and butter to the foodbanks/soupkitchens? Maybe they will even volunteer for a photo op.
There is a roof, and plenty of volunteers. It’s a covid hangover.
Plenty of dickeads about. Young dickhead was trying to buy a fight with an old crone. They don’t realize that its allon the camera’s the buses have….
Such people are not stealing from supermarkets.
Such losses are just part of trading costs and are simply passed on to customers and consumers.
They are stealing from you and me. If you are fine with that, well, i won’t argue, maybe you view it as an act of charity on your behalf or just another tax you bear.
But keep in mind, it’s a non consensual activity, those absorbing the cost of theft have not necessarily consented.
Lawlessness leads to anarchy. Is that what you all want? Who would be happy if their pantry was raided by the locals? You might say it’s different but stealing is stealing. If you bright sparks are so upset about the supermarkets then do something about that!
We have the law for a reason but without the law being policed it is anarchy. So are the police to blame for the shoplifters getting more brazen? Is it the justice system? No? Let’s just blame the supermarkets. And my only connection to supermarkets is grocery shopping. If I see a shoplifter I will ram a trolley into them and run like hell.
MC
Stealing a trolly full of high end expensive food for their retail/trade value on the black market is not the same as stealing a hot meal from the pie warmer at the supermarket.
Maybe you need to go out a bit more into the real world and ask yourself what the consequences will be if your scenario would come true?
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