Crackdown at the Coop: Shoplifters Beware

pic via davidbarrie.typepad.com Clearly it was a slow news day last Friday because the Times ran a piece in the NY/Region section about shoplifting at Park Slope's venerated Food Coop. I'm sure I don't have to provide links to the litany of posts we've done in the past. If you're reading this, chances are you've suffered through it plenty. And shocker, even in a member-based "utopian market" like the coop, people exercise their God-given right to shoplift and apparently this trend is on the rise.

The store's manager, Joe Holtz said in the past the average daily thefts came out to about $700. So I thought even that was high but the rate is up to an alarming $1200 per day, or $438,000 a year. In the past, the coop has used a high chair that workers would sit in to watch over everyone as they shopped. As Holtz explained, for some crazy reason, the chair was unpopular but it helped to raise awareness about theft. And normally if a member was caught shoplifting the punishment was "taken care of" inside the coop. The sentence was expulsion for life.

But times, they are a changin'. Now Holtz is asking for other coop members to snitch on other thieving members. He wants names! And sometimes it's not just banishment that will be inflicted. Now it's time for the Po Po to step in.

The Times article wrapped up with a poignent vignette about coop member Tami Emphross. In October a member tipped off Holtz that Ms. Emphross was dropping some stuff in places other than her basket. After confirming this with the security cam footage, he watched her when she came in for another spree. When he noticed her doing the same thing, he promptly called the police. On her person were three rolls of scotch tape, a rolling pin and alphabet-shaped cookie cutters. The cops, were all like, really? You called us for $25 dollars worth of merchandise? But Holtz stood firm. An example needed to be made.  Ms. Ephross was charged with petty larceny and she is being arraigned today. 

Mr. Holtz waxed philosophical about the situation, "A member and an owner are interchangeable. If a member is stealing from the cooperative, they are actually stealing from themselves.”