Rise in shoplifting tied to ban on plastic bags
DENNIS ODA / 2012
Oahu’s plastic bag ordinance was signed by then-Mayor Peter Carlisle in 2012.
A year after Oahu’s single-use plastic bag ban took effect July 1, 2015, prices have increased, and shoplifting is on the rise as thieves find more ways to walk out of stores without paying for their goods.
“People walk in with their bags, and they put their things in their bags and it’s very difficult for people to tell whether the product was purchased,” said Lauren Zirbel, executive director of the Hawaii Food Industry Association. “Sometimes people will just go in and put products directly in bags, and sometimes loss prevention personnel can’t get everybody. It’s really difficult because you can’t chase people down. It’s a pretty big issue.”
>> Shoplifting up over the past year: 15% to 20%
>> Cost of paper bags: 12 to 28 cents
>> Cost of plastic bags: 1 to 3 cents
>> Percentage of customers bringing in reusable bags: 50
Source: Hawaii Food Industry Association and Tamura Enterprises Inc.
Tamura Enterprises Inc. has experienced a 15 to 20 percent increase in theft over the past year since the prohibition on plastic bags began, said Mike Mita, director of operations. Tamura’s has nine stores, including one that opened Thursday in Kihei, Maui.
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“There’s a lot of times that there are those that get away, and it’s hard for us to discriminate or to discern,” he said. “Age doesn’t matter; it’s not only the young and the middle-aged. Anybody can steal. How do you discern one from the next? You cannot just stop people from coming into your store. You cannot watch everybody. It makes for an uncomfortable shopping experience when somebody’s watching you. You don’t want people to feel uncomfortable shopping in your store.”
The company, which has more than 200 workers, is considering hiring more employees to curb the problem.
“For us the deterrent is pretty much having all our employees on the floor, but it’s expensive to keep people on the floor,” Mita added. “It increases the cost to the consumer.”
KTA Super Stores has also seen more incidents of theft at its six Big Island markets since Hawaii County’s plastic bag ban went into effect in 2014, said President and Chief Operating Officer Toby Taniguchi.
“It’s certainly has increased the incidents of those things happening where individuals kind of just walk out,” he said. “We like to … treat everybody with respect and nicely and with good service. While 99 percent of the customers are honest and forthright, unfortunately there’s a very small percentage that do choose to shoplift.”
Foodland executive Andy Kawano said he didn’t have enough information to say whether there’s been an upswing in thievery.
“There’s homelessness; people are under the influence of drugs, poverty,” he said. “To single out the plastic bag ban, I don’t have enough information to take a stand on that.”
Aside from theft, retailers have seen a dramatic increase in their bag expenses, a cost that is passed on to consumers, Zirbel said. Retailers using paper bags are paying as much as 28 cents per bag, substantially more than the 1 to 3 cents for plastic bags.
Tamura’s said about 50 percent of customers bring in reusable bags.
“It’s a direct tax on groceries because bag increases are being passed onto foods — they have to be,” Zirbel said. “The paper bags cost 10 times more than plastic bags did. The increase of reusable bags was not a large enough increase to offset the cost of the paper, so it was a pretty significant increase in their overall cost of providing bags. One of the large supermarkets saw a 92 percent increase in bag expense because customers are choosing to take paper bags.”
Oahu’s plastic bag ordinance was signed by then-Mayor Peter Carlisle in 2012. While retailers can no longer give customers single-use plastic bags, the law allows for a number of exceptions, including distributing thicker, reusable plastic bags.
Retailers and restaurateurs can still use plastic bags to package plate lunches, poke bowls and other prepared food, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and fish, frozen food and other loose items including nuts, coffee, candy, flowers or plants, medications, newspapers, laundry and pet items.
Hawaii is the first state where single-use plastic grocery bags are banned in all counties, which environmental groups say has resulted in dramatically reducing litter statewide.
“Plastic bags are literally one of the most littered items on the planet. We use them on average for less than 15 minutes, and yet they endure in the environment and the oceans for decades and decades to come,” said Stuart Coleman, Hawaii manager for the Surfrider Foundation, an environmental nonprofit dedicated to protecting coastal areas. “The benefits of banning single-use plastic bags far outweigh any temporary convenience they might serve.”
66 responses to “Rise in shoplifting tied to ban on plastic bags”
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Thats a reach at best.
Is there a law prohibiting a manager or store employee/security from chasing a culprit into the parking lot?
It’s usually store policy to prevent getting sued by the thief later. Or by the employee if the employee gets hurt. Cheaper to let the item be stolen then to pay for any lawsuits.
Chasing people down is a very bad idea. More likely to end up getting sued for one thing or another which will be a lot more costly than the items being pilfered. There are better ways to curb theft and to catch shoplifters.
It’s simple, pay a retired person part time wages to be a door receipt checker like at Costco! Count the items and make sure the count matches. You also give them permission to check bags of those just walking out the store without a receipt. This would cost less then the loss of products you are experiencing and after a month, the thieves will pick your competitors store instead of yours!
Very feasible. Show your receipt. The hard core will still make a run for it however. Big drama with the cops catching the perp but then the courts simply let them go with very little to no accountability.
While I will agree about the lack of prosecution, there’s the one good outcome out of all the drama, the suspected thief will not likely be returning to that store again for a very long time as he/she will be banned from entering a private store.
Well the point is the thief will probably not even try to steal here in the first place. Thieves are cowards that only prey on the weak.
Why don’t you do it for 4 hours at your local supermarket? It won’t be easy and you won’t enjoy it, either.
Bingo!
Costco can check receipts because you agreed to in your membership application. Walmart cannot. They have no right to detain and search you.
Exactly! I paid for my stuff. I’m not gonna wait in another line so some store employee can look through my stuff.
While they have no right to detain and search you, they can ask for you to voluntarily show proof that you made a purchase as you exit. I’m sure the bulk of the population complies and only a few picks ruin it for the rest of us. If you feel like acting like a prick then it’s your right to use the laws to your advantage and tell them to go bite themselves but those sort of attitudes only contribute to higher prices as the stores are only trying to minimize their thefts.
Walmart has people checking receipts at the doors. They might not be able to “detain and search you”, but they do have cameras and they do have phones to call HPD.
Dragoninwater: you nailed it! Thanks for the comment!
Good idea!
I don’t even want paper bags. They rip from weight or get soggy and break, causing my food to go all over.
The thing I don’t get is there’s a company that makes the “plastic” bags out of a biodegradable rice based product. They only cost a few cents more than traditional plastic bags but they break down so that they don’t pollute the land and ocean. That always seemed like a good compromise to me.
The law was also fueled by cry babies that didn’t like seeing these bags blowing around their neighborhoods or sticking to all the vegetation on the sides of the roads. This was the major issue otherwise your suggestion which was already considered, would have passed legislation!
More “unintended consequences”. What a surprise.
““It’s a direct tax on groceries because bag increases are being passed onto foods”
Thanks, Dems, taxing us any way that they can.
I used to reuse those grocery and other retailer-provided plastic bags for trash/garbage. They had at least a dual use, if not more if I used them for other purposes (carrying food dishes to parties, putting knick-knacks in them, etc.). Now I have to purchase trash/garbage bags for the purpose that the grocery bags were used for, and those thicker trash/garbage bags that I have to buy will probably last longer in the environment. Thanks environmentalists and politicians for raising the cost of living. Soon that other “e” word will become a dirty word like “politicians”.
Same here. Also on Oahu we have H power that worked more efficiently with plastic. A simple internet search revealed that the use of paper over plastic results in more green house gas contribution to the environment. Not sure why the surfrider foundation wants additional greenhouse gasses and single use plastic on Oahu for garbage and pet poop. Too bad they didn’t do their homework before supporting such a ridiculous law on this island.
You’re right that paper bags produce more greenhouse gasses than plastic bags, but wrong to say that Surfrider or any other groups advocated for either. Surfrider and thousands of other supporters are trying to reduce plastic pollution and never supported using paper bags instead of plastic ones–they have always advocated for using REUSABLE BAGS. These reusable bags produce less greenhouse gasses, save money and create less litter and waste. Thanks for the feedback but please do YOUR homework before throwing out unfounded accusations.
Members of Surfrider and other groups recently met with officials from Covanta / H-Power, and they confirmed the fact that plastic bags and other single-use plastics are not a good feedstock for burning because they have a low BTU value. Plastic bags also block storm drains, are a breed ground for mosquitos (carrying dengue and Zika) and foul up the City’s sorting machines, costing a lot of money to fix.
Good. Buy your own trash bags. That should be the case anyway. Take responsibility for yourself.
Wow!
Management cannot find a solution to shop lifting, so blame the problem on a plastic bag?
STEM Shoplifting takes everybody’s money.
The colossal rail failure is stealing from everyone on a monumental level.
Rail is stealing about $10 billion from taxpayers. Someone should go to prison.
It’s actually $10.8 billion and growing by the day. But hey who cares right? Who’s really going to miss an additional $800 million or another $5 extra billion 2 weeks from now when they revise the costs again, right? Caldwell thinks it’s a good investment to keep drifters off the streets and aimlessly have them riding the choo-choo from nowhere to nowhere. In a way, it’s a prison sentence for those commuters.
if management believes shoplifting has increased to the point of reducing profit margins, then, it’s time for management to start providing free multi-use plastic shopping bags that meet the law required thickness.
Times gives the thicker bags. Smart store.
Do you actually think they are FREE? It’s all factored into the price of the goods that they sell.
It doesn’t appear to be much, however, since they only give you back 3 cents if you bring your own bag.
Stuart Coleman, Hawaii manager for the Surfrider Foundation, is totally wrong when saying, “We use them on average for less than 15 minutes.” They serve in so many other uses before ending up in the trash.
Sad to say the local eco terrorists and elected bureaucrats who pushed for the bag ban were weak of mind, lead around like a little lamb. Not a clue what they were doing, the consequences.
Just another day in the little 8th world of Hawaii Nei.
I used to worked in the grocery industry before plastic bags were used and it took 7 containers of paper bags for 1 container of plastic bags. Now can you imagine how many trees we now sacrifice for paper bags?
The ban is a good thing. While I myself have used those bags for trash bags many years ago the bulk of them were never reused and were disposed of almost immediately after my groceries were removed. I’ve switched to using my own cloth grocery bags for years and have no regrets. It truly does make a significant difference as we have a small island and a population of almost a million. Think about all the trash bags just on Oahu alone: 1-Million population x 3-Plastic bags per person on a weekly average x 52-weeks = 156 million plastic bags annually get buried in a landfill! Just take your trash right into the dumpster from your sealable trashcan and you won’t need trash bags.
It doesn’t end up in the dump, all trash gets burned at H-Power.
How do you get a “sealable trashcan”?
Instead of looking for scapegoats (“local eco terrorists,” really?!), why don’t you look at the problem of having millions of single-use plastic bags littering our Islands? Only a small portion of people reuse the more than 400 bags that the average person goes through each year. In Hawaii, that adds up to more than 500 million bags annually! That’s a lot of unnecessary litter and trash! More than 100 cities have successfully banned or reduced the use plastic bags because it just makes sense. Is it really that difficult to switch to a reusable bag? They’re more durable, save money (for stores and shoppers) and help keep the environment clean. This in turn helps tourism, the economy and a better way of life.
Thereʻs also all the hidden costs of having to ship in paper or plastic bags. Reusables are the way to go!
Get the Plastic Bag Protesters to provide theft monitoring…they can dress up in their plastic bags costumes…I mean uniforms (remember…?) so they can serve as a deterrent…just saying 🙂
I’m glad I stashed plastic bags for about 3 years before the stores were forced to stop giving them. I have enough in my stash for the next couple of years of trash, until the bag ban itself gets trashed.
Instead of adding the increased cost of bags to the consumer goods, simply charge 28 cents to the individual requiring a bag. People will learn quickly to bring their own reusable bags. Many mainland states employ this method and it works fine.
If they pulled that on me for a paper bag, I would walk out and cost them even more in loss of employee productivity by having to restock what I left by the register.
You may run out of stores to go to.
Excellent idea!
you missed the point of the article: shoplifters use personal bags to cloak their theft of merchandise and stores are experiencing rising losses as a result.
forcing regular shoppers to use personal reusable bags makes it easier for shoplifters to mix with the crowd and evade scrutiny from the stores’ loss prevention officers. increasing the cost of bags to customers results in more customers using personal reusable bags and does nothing to resolve the stores’ increasing losses from shoplifting.
stores that offer free multi-use bags will eventually see reduced shoplifting as consumers would not be forced to provide their own bags. by reducing the amount of personal reusable bags shoppers bring in, stores can more easily monitor shoplifters and reduce their losses, eventually reducing its pass-on costs to consumers.
VERY, VERY GOOD JOB THIEVES, KEEP ON DOING IT UNTIL THE BAN ON PLASTIC BAGS IS REMOVED.
Let consumers use shopping carts ONLY and not allow them to place items in their own personal bags until at the checkout. What’s so difficult about that?
lepscptt, that’s what my wife and I do.
I only used my reusable bag(s) to shop when Wal-Mart didn’t have any baskets on hand to use and I knew I was going to shop for a couple of things so I didn’t bother with a cart. Then again, I’m trustworthy and remembered to go to the (self) checkout.
Walmart allows customers to carry items to be purchased in their own bag on the way to checkout? You may be honest but that is very easy way for a person to shoplift.
Have a store policy that all merchandise needs to be in a basket or cart when going to the register.
Always have the clerk ask if you want a bag. I usually do not take one. Plus COSTCO does not put out any bags they use recycled boxes.
Women have carried purses since forever. So does this up swing in theft suggest that the new opportunity is due to men carrying bags?
gotta do the costco ……………show your receipt, let um check your bags, and your on your way
take more time but overall best for everybody
Typical city council and mayor. It doesn’t matter what it costs or how inconvenient it is as long as you can say you’re on their side to the liberal environmentalists.
So if “liberal environmentalists” are out toward one end of the bell curve … that might be a good thing considering how many people trash this planet with no positive vision for the future. Change will happen for better or worse. Lets change for the good of the space ship earth.
Kailua Target store has been paper/plastic bag-less since the day they opened. Patrons bring in their own bags, or they can purchase a Target bag at check-out for 99 cents. I’ve seen people walk out w/ items in a 5-gallon bucket, or holding them in their arms. It isn’t a problem at Kailua Target, so why do so many people commenting act like they are helpless to recycle/reuse. I even take those paper bags from Foodland/Times/Macys into other stores to put my purchases into at check-out. I also keep a reusable bag in the trunk of my car, stuffed w/ bags so I can pull some out and take into a store when I am shopping. Quit complaining and grow-up, take care of yourself and our island, malama the aina!!!!
What a joke. It cost the environment and our economy more to provide those thicker plastic re-usable bags.
An unintended result of a stupid law. Having worked in loss prevention in a store what the article say is pretty spot on.
I use those supplied one time use shopping carts….grab a shopping cart…put all your groceries in the cart….take all items out at the register…pay for items….place em all back in the cart….roll out the store….and then continue rolling all the way home….if you get one of those automatically locking ones just bring a crowbar to pry open the lock….unload cart when at home…then leave the cart on the sidewalk for a passing homeless to take and use! Continue cycle again later….see no need any bags!
What are we talking about here, the rail, or plastic bags?
Won’t items not bar-code scanned at register set off alarm when leaving? Just a thought . . .
martin’s fault again – he bullied the other council members to pass the bill, and he wants to be mayor? ridiculous
Blame Caldwell!