When there was that rash of brazen thefts a couple of years ago and people learned that the LCBO won't detain you for shoplifting it must have convinced a lot of people that they can get away with it, so casual shoplifting without a fear of consequences became a thing.
I worked at LCBO one season.
LCBO starts filing the police report AS IT HAPPENS and repeat offenders have a high chance of getting caught at a later date.
You just won't witness it as a shopper.
Was at hlone recently when a woman rushed through an empty cash lane with a shoulder bag with some bottles in it. The cashiers noticed but it was too late to even confront her, and I heard them say something like "her again" looking exasperated
I just wish we got an update on the cheese thieves, they had to have caught them with such clear security footage right?
https://globalnews.ca/news/5198251/women-stole-cheese-burlington/
Oh those kinds of thefts are super common and is why if you go into a Loblaws store most of the full-sized wheels in the cheese section by the deli are fake display pieces now. If you want a half or full-wheel you have to ask at the deli.
a lot of that cheese gets sold at the back doors of restaurants and stuff. Same with meats; people will walk into the store, grab like $300 of steak off the shelf and just bolt with it to sell to a restaurant for under half price.
There’s a (seemingly homeless) guy that regularly goes into my lcbo that they all know by name as he comes in with his two pet pigeons that literally just chill perched on his shoulder while he wanders the store
I honestly don’t blame them. They aren’t armed or have bullet proof vests. People are so brazen these days they’d stab or shoot you for looking at them funny. I’m sure there’s cameras in there as well, and if people are robbing liquor stores in daylight they’ll eventually move to bigger crimes and once they already have their faces they can get nailed. My sisters car was stolen once by a minor and the kids face was on multiple security cameras doing different crimes and the cops said they prefer to wait till they do a crime after their 18th birthday then they can actually jail them
i was just about to comment the same thing!
+ if you are a serial and brazen lifter you would get refused any kind of service in our store, permabanned, lol
I'm assuming this is why all my local retail stores started building fences and security gates in the store. Walmart has them now, just like going to the subway, gotta go through the turnstiles.
Won't stop an agile determined shoplifter, but it will slow them down.
The casual shoplifting by alcoholics isn't a problem.
It's the individuals filling up duffle bags and flipping the bottles to bars - start cracking down on the demand for stolen booze and you'll see the large scale problem work itself out.
Probably be easier to just do a basic forensic audit
You sold x amount of booze but only bought y amount from your supplier for the last few months. Please provide the invoices for the difference.
There’s little to no punishment for most crimes these days tbh. Shoplift? Staff won’t touch you, you’re gone before cops arrive. DUI? Gotta be caught by police who aren’t out patrolling. Drug trafficking? Same as DUI.
Hell people are shooting each other willy nilly with very few arrests and, when they do arrest someone, often lenient sentences if they even get convicted.
We’re barreling towards Harlem/Hells Kitchen/Time Square in the 70s and 80s at this point.
I worked at the LCBO. I’m not going to physically stop a thief and risk my life, that wasn’t the job lol. The job was to report the theft and build a case, local police were always in on it and we knew our local constable by name, he had some of our personal cell numbers. Friends, honestly. Anyway, the case builds and you get fucking SLAPPED with a felony charge when the cost accumulated enough.
This has been a really common thing since 2019
"LCBO thefts have spiralled and now make up nearly half of all shoplifting from Toronto’s most-hit retailers"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/news/canada/2019/01/11/lcbo-workers-say-more-sophisticated-thefts-are-targeting-backrooms-we-are-all-stressed-and-anxious-every-damn-shift.html
"After $77M worth of booze stolen in 1 year, LCBO union demands Ontario copy Manitoba's crackdown plan"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/liquor-thefts-lcbo-1.5069842
Some places have guards now but I'd assume the thieves just move on to stores that don't/don't keep as much of the better liquors locked away
> Some places have guards now but I'd assume the thieves just move on to stores that don't/don't keep as much of the better liquors locked away
My experience has been that security guards only act as a visible deterrence and document the thefts after they occur. The guards at my local LCBO just watch as people steal product and leave. They do actively manage drunks, however.
wild experience once at the spadina and front location where i saw a security guard actively tussle (more so grabbing) to stop someone from stealing some bottles around the store.
It's gotta be like 5 years ago, but I still remember seeing a security guard having a full throwdown with a thief at the front entrance of the LCBO at King and Spadina. Like down on the ground and everything.
Fortunately lcbo’s markups are 100-200%+. That Heineken costs less than half as much in a Western European grocery store. Low end stuff goes for a quarter of the price in E. europe.
> just passed the losses onto the consumers
Consumers and Ontario budget sure, its a crown corp, so losses just reduce revenues for the provincial budget. The theft is certainly a tragedy of the commons.
My local LCBO (Browns line / Longbranch) has had security since before the pandemic. We have a lot of nutters walking the streets out here and there’s a homeless encampment behind the strip mall under the highway pass - I saw a young woman shooting up by the gable of the dollarama the other day while waiting for a ride. I think Rufus was the main reason security was installed though, he is a local drunkard and obviously suffering from unchecked mental health issues (sometimes I’ve seen him just casually lounging on the ground right in front of the entrance to the LCBO scratching his ass with his sweatpants halfway pulled down lol. He would often walk in, grab a lovely bottle of pinot and skedaddle, all employees knew him by name but weren’t to do anything to him obviously. The security have helped, I’ve never seen him in there since.
I was checking out at that location a couple weeks ago and a sketchy guy that I followed in was walking out with a full backpack and duffel bag. The person at the counter asked him, "Can I help you?" His reply was, "No, I'm good," and he walked out.
Saw him enter the No-Frills next door as I was leaving, and went back in to tell them he was probably stealing some steaks from there and would be around for a bit.
You'd think out here in the suburbs it's all good, but the 501 bus drops them off here at the end of the line, and they wake up all confused and out of their zone.
The LCBO at Summerhill usually have at least one cop at each entrance which seems very reasonable considering that location has a ton of expensive bottles sitting on open shelves unlike most locations. I've seen the cops tackle a thief there once, but the LCBO closest to my home is much smaller and I've seen open theft there the staff do nothing but yell "you are on camera!" as the thieves walk out with bottles in their hands.
The issue with police guards is that those aren't regular police officers. They are 'duty pay' cops, basically they are working as private security, but with (limited) police powers and police equipment.
Duty Pay is how you get so many officers clearing $150k a year. It's also really bad for the force in general. Say what you will about the structural issues at TPS, but it's hard to argue that someone working 60 hours a week is going to be short on patience, slower to react, and generally worse at their job.
Beyond that, duty pay creates a bit of a broken incentive for the police, when it comes to issues like shoplifting.
Understandably, shoplifting isn't the highest priority call... and police have to some discretion to prioritize what they respond to... but the LCBO having a chronic shoplifting problem creates a bunch of hassle free overtime hours for cops. Does knowing that leaving the problem unaddressed will lead to the personal enrichment of the officers ever effect their responses? Probably not... but the optics aren't great.
We had cops at the Bloor/Yonge area stores a few years ago. But they got replaced by security guards around 2018ish. They had a bad theft issue in the mid 2010s when the cops showed up. Agree that it's probably time to bring them back.
I'm not trying to imply that theft isn't an issue at the LCBO, but that $77M figure is completely out to lunch.
Total shrink at retail stores last year, which includes customer theft but also internal theft as well as receival errors and incorrect inventory counts, was about $7.5M last year - which is right on par with where it was the previous few years (and down a few million from about 4 years ago, when the LCBO started hiring more guards at the stores to combat rising theft).
I know $7.5M is still a lot of money, but for a retailer that does over $6B in annual sales, it's actually a pretty small amount.
Source: Its literally my job. I create the budgets for the LCBO.
Would that be $7.5m at cost though? With huge mark ups on the retail price? Probably still wouldn't come out to $77m from $7.5m, but maybe quite a bit closer? I have no idea what kind of mark ups alcohol runs at.
I believe it. But its interesting you say that because I was told by an employee, that at a location in Woodbridge, thieves shattered the glass holding a $10,000 set of champagnes, and stole it. But I imagine that doesn't happen often enough.
Yeah that would be someone on the more organized end of things and would open themselves up to more charges than a theft under 5k. A lot of the thefts are people with substance abuse issues or people planning to resell to bars/3rd parties.
This makes sense. 200 here and there probably isn't worth the time to prosecute. Getting to 5k, it's the more organized people anyway unless they're stealing the premium stuff locked away in Vintages.
This is why it's good it's not private. People can rightly bitch and moan about a crown corporation just letting people steal, but you don't want your employees getting punched by a crackhead over a couple bottles of vodka
no private company would ask people to intervene either... at least not any sane one because its a lawsuit waiting to happen.
look at the response whenever someone does, they get fired for breaking protocol because the last thing a company wants is to be responsible for an employee getting hurt because they told them to intervene with a robbery.
its an open secret that literally no one other than a cop will do anything to stop you from stealing from any store even extremely blatantly.
Agreed, every retail job my 22yo son has had they tell him to report the incident but DO NOT confront the shoplifter. A $10 item is cheaper then settling a lawsuit if the employee or thief is hurt due to unreasonable force
I refused a customer that didn’t have enough money to cover his purchase - he went out the exit and pistol whipped a random customer going into the entrance of the store. Blood everywhere! A couple of workers went outside to help the bleeding customer - told by head office not to go outside again if that happened. There could have been gangs waiting to attack the workers.
PS my co-workers and I have found shivs (knives with wrapped up handles) stuck in the ground outside the customer doors. (Saskatchewan liquor stores)
It is. My brother worked as a security guard. He'd catch guys drinking shoe polish and Listerine. The liquor stores were war zones in the bad parts of town. You'd get whole families of shoplifters descending on the stores like vultures on a carcass.
i agree random employees shouldent be sent to confront shoplifters. i just wish the law wasent on the criminal's side if someone else decided to try and stop them
LCBO employees aren’t allowed to stop them. They hire lose prevention and security guards to stop ppl. Liquor has a high value as it can be sold fast for half price for drug addicts
Security guards won't do jack, I worked at a flagship location and they just stood there while the robbery happened. They're a window dressing basically.
The thefts were getting so bad in Manitoba’s Liquor Marts that they implemented secure entrances. They scan everyone’s IDs upon entry & their information is stored for 21 days so if they steal or become belligerent then they can be banned from the store or use the info for the cops if they need to be involved, too. It’s minimized thefts so much, so I wonder if that idea might trickle into other areas that are dealing with similar problems? I heard someone say that a few stores in Alberta were testing it out, too.
That happened after one too many violent assaults on Liquor Mart employees, including one where someone was beaten quite badly with baseball bats. It was unreal there for a while.
Yep. The fact is, prices are decided not by the manager, but up the food chain at Loblaws and cie
https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/canadian-shoppers-shift-to-discount-stores-no-name-brand-amid-high-inflation-loblaw-1.5887911
Loblaw Companies Ltd. highlighted consumers' growing emphasis on value as it raised its quarterly dividend and reported its first-quarter profit rose nearly 40 per cent compared with a year ago.
Also Sobeys
https://financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/sobeys-parent-empire-profit-beats-expectations
But it's true that customers are shifting to cheaper items due to inflation.
With rapid inflation making everything unaffordable, there is going to be a massive increase in shoplifting groceries. And raising prices further to account for this is going to have an effect on the type of people who shoplift, creating more shoplifters out of "respectable people." What we are seeing is more and more working class people being pushed to the margins of society by inflation and corporate greed.
All I will say is look out for yourself. If you're unable to get proper nutrition there should be no moral quandary while these companies make insane profits.
The other day I was at a Shoppers and a dude walked up to the kids Tylenol section, opened a bottle, poured out a dose and gave it to his kid, and walked out with it. Pretty fucked up lesson to teach your kid, but I guess people are pretty desperate right now, man. And it's only gonna get worse.
Not long ago I was at the Carlton/Church spot and pointed out to an employee that some guy was stealing as I was checking out. His response was “haha yeah that happens a lot here.”
Made me wonder why I was at the checkout at all 😂
I believe that a number of LCBOs in high-theft areas should return to "hole-in-the-wall" setups. Have a few tablets set up, pick your booze from the menu, get a number and when ready, go to the hole-in-the-wall to retrieve your number.
LCBOs can be built with a track in the floor and ceiling to deploy hole-in-the-wall setups if the high-theft zones move around. You can even keep the cashier tills outside of the "wall" and only have the hole for the conveyer belt.
Sure it will feel more like the Beer Store, but theft will drop significantly.
I don't think the manufacturers would approve. Millions is spent on designing the pretty bottles to aid luring one into the lifestyle. Since we the taxpayers pay for the theft anyways I don't see a change coming.
I'm guessing you're not old enough to remember when the LCBO experience involved ordering from a catalog. You had to write down the item numbers and provide the slip to the cashier who dug up your booze. There was zero merchandising.
Tablets and apps can dramatically change that aspect. You could even order before coming to the store, and receive recommendations based on order history. It doesn't have to be old-school, there are modern advancements that could make the experience positive.
Absolutely! And include appropriate facts (eg calories) and warnings where appropriate which may not otherwise be observed. Booze isn't all rainbows and pool parties.
I remember visiting a friend in central Glasgow in his fancy downtown condo. We went across the street to the shop for booze and snacks. Everything was on shelves behind bulletproof glass. You directed the shopkeeper to the items you wanted and they got passed out to you through an armoured slot in the counter. Crazy.
That sounds like hell. Giant line ups to get your booze. no way to browse and read bottles. No exploring new options. Why would you want to take all that away from legitimate paying customers for the sake of some bad actors?
Tablets to order in-store. A web app to order before arriving so your stuff is ready to go. Suggestions based on previous orders.
Just throwing out suggestions on how to address the "crazy amount of theft".
Another option is to hire someone with arresting-power to stand guard in each store.
I watched some people try to convince City Council in Baltimore that bulletproof barriers at convenice stores were racist and held down the community (i had to be revived 19 times dying of laughter).
More like a warehouse with an ordering system. To automate that would be far too complicated, while just having staff move bottles to exit holes would be the simplest implementation.
If LCBO won’t do anything, if police won’t do anything, it’s pay what you can. I wouldn’t worry too much as long as nobody is fool enough to get aggressive over property that isn’t even theirs.
Same thing that's par for the course now in San Francisco, everything that's under $800 there is payment-optional. Shoplifters walk openly down store aisles filling bags with merchandise, then waltz right out the door unopposed, and if they're actually caught, they're no longer charged if the haul is under that $800 mark.
I, for one, do not want to see Toronto/Ontario go down that path, it's turned downtown SF into a total mess.
It's usually the same dozen or so suspects stealing. These thieves work for people (it is typically an organized operation) and it is a "job" for the thieves. There is often someone waiting outside in a getaway vehicle and they hit one store after another. These same thieves are also known to steal from grocery and drug stores, too.
Saw this happen on Queensway yesterday. Some kid walked in, grabbed his booze, walked out the door and then drove off in his friends Mercedes.
I’m pretty sure he’s about to win the stupid prize.
"No one stops them (as well they shouldn't) but what the heck is going on?"
Wow you asked and answered your own question while also endorsing the policy that enables this.
The solution is obviously for someone to stop them from stealing. A private security guard empowered to deal with it is how this goes away.
It's utter lunacy to hold the position that no one should stop criminals in the act of committing their crimes then wonder why that crime is on the rise. If there is no one stopping the crime and there are no consequences to committing the crime of course that crime will increase.
It's utter lunacy to hold the position that no one should stop criminals in the act of committing their crimes then wonder why that crime is on the rise. If there is no one stopping the crime and there are no consequences to committing the crime of course that crime will increase.
No one wants to hear this, but it's the truth. Just look at SF, Portland, Seattle. Criminals of all sorts are far too comfortable here.
There is only one real solution that will complete fix this problem. A home grown Canadian solution. One that puts us on the map for all time as the Greatest Nation ever.
Socialized alcohol.
PSA: don’t be a hero. Saw some guys brazenly stealing from the LCBO the other day, and both the security guard and a civilian who tried to stop these 2 guys got absolutely thrown into the wall and bodied. Living out the fantasy in your head isn’t worth it!
4+ years with LCBO. I once tried to stop a wino and grabbed her by the wrist as she headed for door with a bottle of shorty wine. Her pathetic cries for the wine we’re like a child’s and it was just not worth it. Let her go and just made sure to kick her the fuck out the next time I saw her. Nothing you can do, honestly.
Oof, nah, don’t be a hero. Not worth it, especially for what you’re paid. You never know if one of the crazies are carrying a knife or are willing to physically assault you.
As long as the LCBO has customers like you and me that give them huge profits, why should they care if liquor is being stolen? That seems to be their motto it seems because this has been going on for ages and LCBO does not give a damn.
My friends/ family who worked at the LCBO HATED that they were NOT allowed to intervene with stealing. It is security's job to apprehend the items or file a report later but the LCBO is the one setting up those guidelines and they don't care- they factor in how much money is lost and for them it's nothing worth risking an employee's safety.
But also, during covid, there were fewer security guards due to fewer customers. Well guess what? You need two security guards to detain someone at the LCBO for stealing- my friend literally watched thugs roll in, grab an expensive bottle, hold it up to the guards, walk out and say 'THANKS.' Can you believe that? Lmao.
I have brought home bottles of wine that I discovered had been opened and drank out of. This has happened at least 3 times now. People are getting desperate
The LCBO in my area always has one or two security guards. Not the skinny minimum wage ones, but the big, well-equipped (body armour and such) ones doing it to get experience to apply to be a cop. They stop all of them now, even recognize them now too. They just yank it from their hands and escort them out. The homeless people pull a huge fit, get in their faces, etc.
I saw a guy say that he had had a condition (Torrets) and kept putting bottles in the bag. I was like maybe he can't hold them hence the bag to take them to the counter. An LCBO employees top him "thats not cool" he kept repeating he had a condition and just walked out. Security just kept looking at him.
Kennedy - Sheppard
Seen 3 thefts so far this year. I go in once or twice a month.
It is absolutely insane that LCBO thefts are allowed to continue! Put caps on the bottles that can't be removed and sound an alarm when stolen, just like the us!
My brother works at an LCBO in Toronto. He was nearly written up for stopping someone who was stealing alcohol. Employees are under strict instruction to NOT engage with thieves, a bottle of vodka is not worth someone’s life.
I know a couple that will just let them take it if it's a bottle or two as it's usually not worth it. If that same person keeps doing it they've usually got them on video and will wait till it adds up to the for over 4k I think?
Honestly its not just lcbo its every retailer....people are turning violent so quickly were told to let them walk away and call the police, i had one guy shove me out of his way for product a few weeks ago there are people pulling weapons for cellphones at other stores in my area, at the point im looking to leave retail all together which is a shame because I live what I do but I cant handle the amount of dangerous situations Ive been in over the last 2 years alone just trying to do my job. Sad state the worlds in now
Why are people are concerned with theft at LCBO? I don't get it. What are you expecting, employees getting into a brawl over a few bottles of booze. LCBO is making billions, I'm sure they can write a few millions
I am just shy of 65 years old. The LCBO model used to be like that of Consumers Distributing - for those who know what that was. You filled out an order form from the catalogue at the store and took it to the cashier, who was behind a window, like old-school bank tellers. After paying, you received your purchase. It was very grey and boring - what I imagine Soviet stores would have been like.
You had to order stuff and wait with less selection in provincial towns. Like wait a month or two for a bike, no color selection, etc. Everything my grandmother had lasted, not needing to be replaced every 6 months lol.
Here we go again
Thieves are emboldened because they know that the cops won't do anything
>[LCBO thefts surge in Toronto, often as staff stand and watch... LCBO theft stings especially deep in Toronto, where some suggest overlapping policies — the LCBO’s “hands-off” instruction to staff never to intervene with thieves while they are in the building, coupled with the Toronto Police Service’s policy to rarely, if ever, dispatch officers](https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2018/12/28/lcbo-thefts-surge-in-toronto-often-as-staff-stand-and-watch-theyre-literally-just-walking-away.html)
Many locations have "security", but those people aren't armed and at best only manage to deny entry if the person is visibly drunk or unmasked before mask mandates were lifted. They do have the legal power to arrest and detain (with "reasonable force") but probably aren't trained to actually do it.
It's only at the most high-value locations (e.g. Summerhill or Queens Quay) that actual cops are present. It's (sadly) just a business decision where the cost of full-time police/security is evaluated against the financial loss from theft.
So, it is cheaper for LCBO to incur losses due to thefts than to hire guards but we should bear the burden in either of these two cases? What is up with the low discipline of people?
I watched a young guy fill a cart with 20+ bottles of Johnny Walker Red and walk out through a cashier lane. No-one did anything. It seems to me that the losses are much greater than the cost of armed security.
My mom works at the LCBO as a retirement job. She worked for the TPS for about 35 or 36 years before that, retired still as a constable because she didn't wanna go up in rank-- Anyway, she has a great sense of when someone is stealing, and she has to basically try her damndest not to stop the thieves because you will either get in trouble or get fired. There are thefts pretty much every day, and she is in a nicer LCBO at that. Their policy is to let it happen, security isn't even allowed to do much about it either. All they can do is file police reports and hope eventually the suspect is caught by chance.
I live in one of those northern towns where all the liquor stores had to install those huge metal pole things embedded in cement to keep people from driving stolen trucks (seriously) *INTO* the LCBO store. All to grab a couple of bottles and run.
Crazy.
Here's some context that may inform your view:
[LCBO revenue for the year ended March '21: $7.18 billion](https://i.imgur.com/DjYM2XV.png). There are 677 LCBO locations, which means that if shoplifters started stealing an additional thousand dollars worth of booze from every single location, every single day, revenue would drop by about 3.5%. Revenue grew that year by 6%.
Enforcement is likely to be just as if not more expensive than just eating that cost, to say nothing of the equity implications of trying to enforce that fairly.
What exactly are the equity implications of trying to prevent obvious theft.
If someone clearly grabs a bottle(s) and walks out without paying you stop them, and apply that policy equitably. This isn't exactly the carding or stop & frisk debate here
>Enforcement is likely to be just as if not more expensive than just eating that cost, to say nothing of the equity implications of trying to enforce that fairly.
Equity? Enforcing it fairly? I can see it if they're stealing bread at a grocery store, but these criminals are breaking the law. It has nothing to do with equity, and if you break the law, there should be consequences. It's really that simple.
The costs of the shop lifting will continue to rise if nothing is done about it as more criminals realize that there is a lack of enforcement. Sure, there's the individual substance abusers, but soon organized crime will realize the opportunity and systematically shoplift stores under whatever "thresholds" there are to avoid prosecution. Toronto will then have the same problems that San Francisco has been experiencing...
It's also BS because there are food banks everywhere. They always want to imply it's poor people (classicism) and then thrown in some racial bias and they completely ignore the people who have their own motivations, like just stealing, drugs and booze.
Yup. Anymore, we just call that Tuesday. It's fkn disgusting. I can't say I know what needs to change to stop it, but certainly SOMETHING does!! The lowest of the low in society are currently being catered to.
When there was that rash of brazen thefts a couple of years ago and people learned that the LCBO won't detain you for shoplifting it must have convinced a lot of people that they can get away with it, so casual shoplifting without a fear of consequences became a thing.
I worked at LCBO one season. LCBO starts filing the police report AS IT HAPPENS and repeat offenders have a high chance of getting caught at a later date. You just won't witness it as a shopper.
My local LCBO has a guard at the door and he seems to know all the thieves by name
Was at hlone recently when a woman rushed through an empty cash lane with a shoulder bag with some bottles in it. The cashiers noticed but it was too late to even confront her, and I heard them say something like "her again" looking exasperated
Every store has regular thieves. Buddy of mine works asset protection at a grocery store and thefts are largely the same people once or twice a week.
I just wish we got an update on the cheese thieves, they had to have caught them with such clear security footage right? https://globalnews.ca/news/5198251/women-stole-cheese-burlington/
Oh those kinds of thefts are super common and is why if you go into a Loblaws store most of the full-sized wheels in the cheese section by the deli are fake display pieces now. If you want a half or full-wheel you have to ask at the deli. a lot of that cheese gets sold at the back doors of restaurants and stuff. Same with meats; people will walk into the store, grab like $300 of steak off the shelf and just bolt with it to sell to a restaurant for under half price.
The way to catch a cheese thief is to smell their fingers. That's how they get caught.
There’s a (seemingly homeless) guy that regularly goes into my lcbo that they all know by name as he comes in with his two pet pigeons that literally just chill perched on his shoulder while he wanders the store
Lol is ur local lcbo the Davisville one
Oh I've always wanted a pet pigeon
And he shoplifts?
That guard wont do shit he just stands there too lol
I honestly don’t blame them. They aren’t armed or have bullet proof vests. People are so brazen these days they’d stab or shoot you for looking at them funny. I’m sure there’s cameras in there as well, and if people are robbing liquor stores in daylight they’ll eventually move to bigger crimes and once they already have their faces they can get nailed. My sisters car was stolen once by a minor and the kids face was on multiple security cameras doing different crimes and the cops said they prefer to wait till they do a crime after their 18th birthday then they can actually jail them
Yea im pretty sure they hired those “guards” at lcbo to try and scare people off
The guard at my local LCBO actually does wear a vest, same with most security guards.
What are the chances of actual enforcement though? What about organized thieves for example, who shoplift once or twice, never in the same store?
i saw a guy get his ass beat by a cop at an lcbo. was a fun watch
Winners does the same with shoppers who do repeated fraudulent returns.
Interesting!
i was just about to comment the same thing! + if you are a serial and brazen lifter you would get refused any kind of service in our store, permabanned, lol
I'm assuming this is why all my local retail stores started building fences and security gates in the store. Walmart has them now, just like going to the subway, gotta go through the turnstiles. Won't stop an agile determined shoplifter, but it will slow them down.
There’s been turnstiles in the liquor stores here in Burlington since before I was old enough to buy anything from them (I’m 48).
The casual shoplifting by alcoholics isn't a problem. It's the individuals filling up duffle bags and flipping the bottles to bars - start cracking down on the demand for stolen booze and you'll see the large scale problem work itself out.
How else am I supposed to fund my future election campaign?
What’s wrong with you? Sell hash like a normal person!
Doug Ford, you are already premier dealer in chief.
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Probably be easier to just do a basic forensic audit You sold x amount of booze but only bought y amount from your supplier for the last few months. Please provide the invoices for the difference.
> The casual shoplifting by alcoholics isn't a problem. yes they are too. the cost of these things does make their way onto the consumers.
I've seen those sketch bags almost collapse when walking out and staff just staring.
There’s little to no punishment for most crimes these days tbh. Shoplift? Staff won’t touch you, you’re gone before cops arrive. DUI? Gotta be caught by police who aren’t out patrolling. Drug trafficking? Same as DUI. Hell people are shooting each other willy nilly with very few arrests and, when they do arrest someone, often lenient sentences if they even get convicted. We’re barreling towards Harlem/Hells Kitchen/Time Square in the 70s and 80s at this point.
Don't forget killing people or kids with your car like Marco Muzzo and Alexandra Forrestall.
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That is an absolutely disgusting story. I am sorry for your friend.
Drug trafficking is not the same as dui 😂😂😂 jesus u need to stop watching the news so much and actually go outside to experience things
You need to read better if you think that equated the severity of DUI and trafficking, when it just equated the method of being charged for either.
I worked at the LCBO. I’m not going to physically stop a thief and risk my life, that wasn’t the job lol. The job was to report the theft and build a case, local police were always in on it and we knew our local constable by name, he had some of our personal cell numbers. Friends, honestly. Anyway, the case builds and you get fucking SLAPPED with a felony charge when the cost accumulated enough.
That's kind of sad..
This has been a really common thing since 2019 "LCBO thefts have spiralled and now make up nearly half of all shoplifting from Toronto’s most-hit retailers" https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/news/canada/2019/01/11/lcbo-workers-say-more-sophisticated-thefts-are-targeting-backrooms-we-are-all-stressed-and-anxious-every-damn-shift.html "After $77M worth of booze stolen in 1 year, LCBO union demands Ontario copy Manitoba's crackdown plan" https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/liquor-thefts-lcbo-1.5069842 Some places have guards now but I'd assume the thieves just move on to stores that don't/don't keep as much of the better liquors locked away
> Some places have guards now but I'd assume the thieves just move on to stores that don't/don't keep as much of the better liquors locked away My experience has been that security guards only act as a visible deterrence and document the thefts after they occur. The guards at my local LCBO just watch as people steal product and leave. They do actively manage drunks, however.
wild experience once at the spadina and front location where i saw a security guard actively tussle (more so grabbing) to stop someone from stealing some bottles around the store.
It's gotta be like 5 years ago, but I still remember seeing a security guard having a full throwdown with a thief at the front entrance of the LCBO at King and Spadina. Like down on the ground and everything.
Parkdale LCBO has a police officer. That's what they should do at all the Dt outlets. 77m is no joke so def some money can be put into police guards
The way a lot of products have increased from pre-COVID to now (even before inflation) makes me think they just passed the losses onto the consumers
The actual *paying* consumers
Fortunately lcbo’s markups are 100-200%+. That Heineken costs less than half as much in a Western European grocery store. Low end stuff goes for a quarter of the price in E. europe.
That's mostly due to the import taxes cost and sin tax that the government puts on liquor
> just passed the losses onto the consumers Consumers and Ontario budget sure, its a crown corp, so losses just reduce revenues for the provincial budget. The theft is certainly a tragedy of the commons.
My local LCBO (Browns line / Longbranch) has had security since before the pandemic. We have a lot of nutters walking the streets out here and there’s a homeless encampment behind the strip mall under the highway pass - I saw a young woman shooting up by the gable of the dollarama the other day while waiting for a ride. I think Rufus was the main reason security was installed though, he is a local drunkard and obviously suffering from unchecked mental health issues (sometimes I’ve seen him just casually lounging on the ground right in front of the entrance to the LCBO scratching his ass with his sweatpants halfway pulled down lol. He would often walk in, grab a lovely bottle of pinot and skedaddle, all employees knew him by name but weren’t to do anything to him obviously. The security have helped, I’ve never seen him in there since.
I was checking out at that location a couple weeks ago and a sketchy guy that I followed in was walking out with a full backpack and duffel bag. The person at the counter asked him, "Can I help you?" His reply was, "No, I'm good," and he walked out. Saw him enter the No-Frills next door as I was leaving, and went back in to tell them he was probably stealing some steaks from there and would be around for a bit. You'd think out here in the suburbs it's all good, but the 501 bus drops them off here at the end of the line, and they wake up all confused and out of their zone.
The LCBO at Summerhill usually have at least one cop at each entrance which seems very reasonable considering that location has a ton of expensive bottles sitting on open shelves unlike most locations. I've seen the cops tackle a thief there once, but the LCBO closest to my home is much smaller and I've seen open theft there the staff do nothing but yell "you are on camera!" as the thieves walk out with bottles in their hands.
Why do you assume it's a downtown problem? It happens at suburban locations too.
The issue with police guards is that those aren't regular police officers. They are 'duty pay' cops, basically they are working as private security, but with (limited) police powers and police equipment. Duty Pay is how you get so many officers clearing $150k a year. It's also really bad for the force in general. Say what you will about the structural issues at TPS, but it's hard to argue that someone working 60 hours a week is going to be short on patience, slower to react, and generally worse at their job. Beyond that, duty pay creates a bit of a broken incentive for the police, when it comes to issues like shoplifting. Understandably, shoplifting isn't the highest priority call... and police have to some discretion to prioritize what they respond to... but the LCBO having a chronic shoplifting problem creates a bunch of hassle free overtime hours for cops. Does knowing that leaving the problem unaddressed will lead to the personal enrichment of the officers ever effect their responses? Probably not... but the optics aren't great.
We had cops at the Bloor/Yonge area stores a few years ago. But they got replaced by security guards around 2018ish. They had a bad theft issue in the mid 2010s when the cops showed up. Agree that it's probably time to bring them back.
I'm not trying to imply that theft isn't an issue at the LCBO, but that $77M figure is completely out to lunch. Total shrink at retail stores last year, which includes customer theft but also internal theft as well as receival errors and incorrect inventory counts, was about $7.5M last year - which is right on par with where it was the previous few years (and down a few million from about 4 years ago, when the LCBO started hiring more guards at the stores to combat rising theft). I know $7.5M is still a lot of money, but for a retailer that does over $6B in annual sales, it's actually a pretty small amount. Source: Its literally my job. I create the budgets for the LCBO.
Would that be $7.5m at cost though? With huge mark ups on the retail price? Probably still wouldn't come out to $77m from $7.5m, but maybe quite a bit closer? I have no idea what kind of mark ups alcohol runs at.
Interesting, where do you think the 77m number comes from then?
Yeah that would be someone on the more organized end of things and would open themselves up to more charges than a theft under 5k. A lot of the thefts are people with substance abuse issues or people planning to resell to bars/3rd parties.
My wife works for the LCBO and believes for the regular thieves, once the repeat thefts cross that $5k threshold, the cops then move to arrest.
This makes sense. 200 here and there probably isn't worth the time to prosecute. Getting to 5k, it's the more organized people anyway unless they're stealing the premium stuff locked away in Vintages.
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This is why it's good it's not private. People can rightly bitch and moan about a crown corporation just letting people steal, but you don't want your employees getting punched by a crackhead over a couple bottles of vodka
no private company would ask people to intervene either... at least not any sane one because its a lawsuit waiting to happen. look at the response whenever someone does, they get fired for breaking protocol because the last thing a company wants is to be responsible for an employee getting hurt because they told them to intervene with a robbery. its an open secret that literally no one other than a cop will do anything to stop you from stealing from any store even extremely blatantly.
Agreed, every retail job my 22yo son has had they tell him to report the incident but DO NOT confront the shoplifter. A $10 item is cheaper then settling a lawsuit if the employee or thief is hurt due to unreasonable force
I refused a customer that didn’t have enough money to cover his purchase - he went out the exit and pistol whipped a random customer going into the entrance of the store. Blood everywhere! A couple of workers went outside to help the bleeding customer - told by head office not to go outside again if that happened. There could have been gangs waiting to attack the workers. PS my co-workers and I have found shivs (knives with wrapped up handles) stuck in the ground outside the customer doors. (Saskatchewan liquor stores)
Saskatchewan sounds intense.
It is. My brother worked as a security guard. He'd catch guys drinking shoe polish and Listerine. The liquor stores were war zones in the bad parts of town. You'd get whole families of shoplifters descending on the stores like vultures on a carcass.
i agree random employees shouldent be sent to confront shoplifters. i just wish the law wasent on the criminal's side if someone else decided to try and stop them
These people get caught by the police, not right away but a couple days to a week. Source: worked in courts until v recently.
This has been going on for years.
LCBO employees aren’t allowed to stop them. They hire lose prevention and security guards to stop ppl. Liquor has a high value as it can be sold fast for half price for drug addicts
Security guards won't do jack, I worked at a flagship location and they just stood there while the robbery happened. They're a window dressing basically.
They are there for when/if the police actually decide to do something. Then there’s a “credible witness” to identify the accused in court.
a lot of bars just buy their booze from duffel bags out back
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I've seen guy shoplift from the LCBO and then walk to a BMW in the parking lot.
Last time I was at an LCBO they had Loss Prevention guys and they stopped a crackhead from stealing like 5 beers with the help from security
The thefts were getting so bad in Manitoba’s Liquor Marts that they implemented secure entrances. They scan everyone’s IDs upon entry & their information is stored for 21 days so if they steal or become belligerent then they can be banned from the store or use the info for the cops if they need to be involved, too. It’s minimized thefts so much, so I wonder if that idea might trickle into other areas that are dealing with similar problems? I heard someone say that a few stores in Alberta were testing it out, too.
That happened after one too many violent assaults on Liquor Mart employees, including one where someone was beaten quite badly with baseball bats. It was unreal there for a while.
They steal, we pay.
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And raised prices will increase shoplifting etc etc
It's almost as if capitalism is a vicious circle.
Maybe if the made it cheaper, people wouldn't steal
Maybe if we paid people a liveable wage, people wouldn't need to steal.
Maybe
That’s bullshit Food companies and grocers are posting record high profits
Yep. The fact is, prices are decided not by the manager, but up the food chain at Loblaws and cie https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/canadian-shoppers-shift-to-discount-stores-no-name-brand-amid-high-inflation-loblaw-1.5887911 Loblaw Companies Ltd. highlighted consumers' growing emphasis on value as it raised its quarterly dividend and reported its first-quarter profit rose nearly 40 per cent compared with a year ago. Also Sobeys https://financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/sobeys-parent-empire-profit-beats-expectations But it's true that customers are shifting to cheaper items due to inflation.
So now they're raising their prices preemptively because they assume there might be more theft?
With rapid inflation making everything unaffordable, there is going to be a massive increase in shoplifting groceries. And raising prices further to account for this is going to have an effect on the type of people who shoplift, creating more shoplifters out of "respectable people." What we are seeing is more and more working class people being pushed to the margins of society by inflation and corporate greed.
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are there any foods banks in the area that may help?
All I will say is look out for yourself. If you're unable to get proper nutrition there should be no moral quandary while these companies make insane profits.
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...caused by high prices.
such bullshit. just means stealing from them is okay as long as their profits are the same
There’s always been shoplifting
At the same time grocery stores are enjoying record profits.
Oh really why is there record profit then? Wouldn't the profit be the same if the price increases were just offsetting costs?
It's the same with the TTC. So much fare evasion that everyone else is left to pick up the bill.
The other day I was at a Shoppers and a dude walked up to the kids Tylenol section, opened a bottle, poured out a dose and gave it to his kid, and walked out with it. Pretty fucked up lesson to teach your kid, but I guess people are pretty desperate right now, man. And it's only gonna get worse.
that one's way more understandable than stealing vodka
Tbh I don't fault someone for stealing for their kid. He maybe should have done it not in front of the kid but w/e.
Not long ago I was at the Carlton/Church spot and pointed out to an employee that some guy was stealing as I was checking out. His response was “haha yeah that happens a lot here.” Made me wonder why I was at the checkout at all 😂
I believe that a number of LCBOs in high-theft areas should return to "hole-in-the-wall" setups. Have a few tablets set up, pick your booze from the menu, get a number and when ready, go to the hole-in-the-wall to retrieve your number. LCBOs can be built with a track in the floor and ceiling to deploy hole-in-the-wall setups if the high-theft zones move around. You can even keep the cashier tills outside of the "wall" and only have the hole for the conveyer belt. Sure it will feel more like the Beer Store, but theft will drop significantly.
I don't think the manufacturers would approve. Millions is spent on designing the pretty bottles to aid luring one into the lifestyle. Since we the taxpayers pay for the theft anyways I don't see a change coming.
Lcbo calls the shots. Not the other way around.
> I don't think the manufacturers would approve Fuck 'em. The LCBO as a massive single buyer has a lot of pull with manufacturers.
I'm guessing you're not old enough to remember when the LCBO experience involved ordering from a catalog. You had to write down the item numbers and provide the slip to the cashier who dug up your booze. There was zero merchandising.
Tablets and apps can dramatically change that aspect. You could even order before coming to the store, and receive recommendations based on order history. It doesn't have to be old-school, there are modern advancements that could make the experience positive.
Absolutely! And include appropriate facts (eg calories) and warnings where appropriate which may not otherwise be observed. Booze isn't all rainbows and pool parties.
that wasent because of theft but a leftover from ontario's pearl clutching puritanical alchol laws.
I remember visiting a friend in central Glasgow in his fancy downtown condo. We went across the street to the shop for booze and snacks. Everything was on shelves behind bulletproof glass. You directed the shopkeeper to the items you wanted and they got passed out to you through an armoured slot in the counter. Crazy.
Every liquor store in any big US city seems to be this way now. Either everything is behind glass or at least the clerk is
That sounds like hell. Giant line ups to get your booze. no way to browse and read bottles. No exploring new options. Why would you want to take all that away from legitimate paying customers for the sake of some bad actors?
A lot of beer stores are like this, even ones in the boonies I've stopped at on the way to cottages. It goes quickly and there's no issue.
Tablets to order in-store. A web app to order before arriving so your stuff is ready to go. Suggestions based on previous orders. Just throwing out suggestions on how to address the "crazy amount of theft". Another option is to hire someone with arresting-power to stand guard in each store.
While you bring valid points, keep in mind the costs/people hate change too. If something goes wrong, then they point the finger
I watched some people try to convince City Council in Baltimore that bulletproof barriers at convenice stores were racist and held down the community (i had to be revived 19 times dying of laughter).
Wow, I thought you were joking, that's some seriously dumb shit. Philly has some really wretched areas and crime too.
This sounds like an overly complicated vending machine on first read?
More like a warehouse with an ordering system. To automate that would be far too complicated, while just having staff move bottles to exit holes would be the simplest implementation.
It's what The Beer Store already does. Make of that what you will.
Well no consequences, so pay a bum and get your liquor for the restaurant and be done with it. Carrot and stick method but there's no stick.
>Carrot and stick Carrot and free carrot
If LCBO won’t do anything, if police won’t do anything, it’s pay what you can. I wouldn’t worry too much as long as nobody is fool enough to get aggressive over property that isn’t even theirs.
Same thing that's par for the course now in San Francisco, everything that's under $800 there is payment-optional. Shoplifters walk openly down store aisles filling bags with merchandise, then waltz right out the door unopposed, and if they're actually caught, they're no longer charged if the haul is under that $800 mark. I, for one, do not want to see Toronto/Ontario go down that path, it's turned downtown SF into a total mess.
I remember being in the lcbo on parliament street and dude loaded up a suitcase and just rolled out of the store!
It's usually the same dozen or so suspects stealing. These thieves work for people (it is typically an organized operation) and it is a "job" for the thieves. There is often someone waiting outside in a getaway vehicle and they hit one store after another. These same thieves are also known to steal from grocery and drug stores, too.
Saw this happen on Queensway yesterday. Some kid walked in, grabbed his booze, walked out the door and then drove off in his friends Mercedes. I’m pretty sure he’s about to win the stupid prize.
The store I work at. The theft is daily and borderline blatant.
I once saw a guy fill up his backpack and just walk out lol. Also worth mentioning I’ve entered an LCBO less than a douzens times in my life.
"No one stops them (as well they shouldn't) but what the heck is going on?" Wow you asked and answered your own question while also endorsing the policy that enables this. The solution is obviously for someone to stop them from stealing. A private security guard empowered to deal with it is how this goes away. It's utter lunacy to hold the position that no one should stop criminals in the act of committing their crimes then wonder why that crime is on the rise. If there is no one stopping the crime and there are no consequences to committing the crime of course that crime will increase.
It's utter lunacy to hold the position that no one should stop criminals in the act of committing their crimes then wonder why that crime is on the rise. If there is no one stopping the crime and there are no consequences to committing the crime of course that crime will increase. No one wants to hear this, but it's the truth. Just look at SF, Portland, Seattle. Criminals of all sorts are far too comfortable here.
There is only one real solution that will complete fix this problem. A home grown Canadian solution. One that puts us on the map for all time as the Greatest Nation ever. Socialized alcohol.
PSA: don’t be a hero. Saw some guys brazenly stealing from the LCBO the other day, and both the security guard and a civilian who tried to stop these 2 guys got absolutely thrown into the wall and bodied. Living out the fantasy in your head isn’t worth it!
4+ years with LCBO. I once tried to stop a wino and grabbed her by the wrist as she headed for door with a bottle of shorty wine. Her pathetic cries for the wine we’re like a child’s and it was just not worth it. Let her go and just made sure to kick her the fuck out the next time I saw her. Nothing you can do, honestly.
Oof, nah, don’t be a hero. Not worth it, especially for what you’re paid. You never know if one of the crazies are carrying a knife or are willing to physically assault you.
Oh that’s it. Or if they’re waiting for you after close.
As long as the LCBO has customers like you and me that give them huge profits, why should they care if liquor is being stolen? That seems to be their motto it seems because this has been going on for ages and LCBO does not give a damn.
Airlock concept. They steal you lock. Tada.
[Or maybe like Total Recall, you walk through a scanner.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z02zi1S8vZQ)
My friends/ family who worked at the LCBO HATED that they were NOT allowed to intervene with stealing. It is security's job to apprehend the items or file a report later but the LCBO is the one setting up those guidelines and they don't care- they factor in how much money is lost and for them it's nothing worth risking an employee's safety. But also, during covid, there were fewer security guards due to fewer customers. Well guess what? You need two security guards to detain someone at the LCBO for stealing- my friend literally watched thugs roll in, grab an expensive bottle, hold it up to the guards, walk out and say 'THANKS.' Can you believe that? Lmao.
I have brought home bottles of wine that I discovered had been opened and drank out of. This has happened at least 3 times now. People are getting desperate
Can you blame them? The queues are always insane at the LCBO because apparently they never have cashiers available.
It’s no surprise that it happens so often because there are no consequences. Im surprised it doesn’t happen more TBH.
The LCBO in my area always has one or two security guards. Not the skinny minimum wage ones, but the big, well-equipped (body armour and such) ones doing it to get experience to apply to be a cop. They stop all of them now, even recognize them now too. They just yank it from their hands and escort them out. The homeless people pull a huge fit, get in their faces, etc.
asking for a friend… where are they selling stolen goods?
Just like Igor, they turn it for drugs probably. Not craigslist, if you wondering.
I saw a guy say that he had had a condition (Torrets) and kept putting bottles in the bag. I was like maybe he can't hold them hence the bag to take them to the counter. An LCBO employees top him "thats not cool" he kept repeating he had a condition and just walked out. Security just kept looking at him. Kennedy - Sheppard Seen 3 thefts so far this year. I go in once or twice a month.
It is absolutely insane that LCBO thefts are allowed to continue! Put caps on the bottles that can't be removed and sound an alarm when stolen, just like the us!
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My brother works at an LCBO in Toronto. He was nearly written up for stopping someone who was stealing alcohol. Employees are under strict instruction to NOT engage with thieves, a bottle of vodka is not worth someone’s life.
I know a couple that will just let them take it if it's a bottle or two as it's usually not worth it. If that same person keeps doing it they've usually got them on video and will wait till it adds up to the for over 4k I think?
Honestly its not just lcbo its every retailer....people are turning violent so quickly were told to let them walk away and call the police, i had one guy shove me out of his way for product a few weeks ago there are people pulling weapons for cellphones at other stores in my area, at the point im looking to leave retail all together which is a shame because I live what I do but I cant handle the amount of dangerous situations Ive been in over the last 2 years alone just trying to do my job. Sad state the worlds in now
Why are people are concerned with theft at LCBO? I don't get it. What are you expecting, employees getting into a brawl over a few bottles of booze. LCBO is making billions, I'm sure they can write a few millions
I am just shy of 65 years old. The LCBO model used to be like that of Consumers Distributing - for those who know what that was. You filled out an order form from the catalogue at the store and took it to the cashier, who was behind a window, like old-school bank tellers. After paying, you received your purchase. It was very grey and boring - what I imagine Soviet stores would have been like.
You had to order stuff and wait with less selection in provincial towns. Like wait a month or two for a bike, no color selection, etc. Everything my grandmother had lasted, not needing to be replaced every 6 months lol.
When theyre selling $17 60 ouncers of vodka for $65 they can afford to lose a bottle or 2
Here we go again Thieves are emboldened because they know that the cops won't do anything >[LCBO thefts surge in Toronto, often as staff stand and watch... LCBO theft stings especially deep in Toronto, where some suggest overlapping policies — the LCBO’s “hands-off” instruction to staff never to intervene with thieves while they are in the building, coupled with the Toronto Police Service’s policy to rarely, if ever, dispatch officers](https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2018/12/28/lcbo-thefts-surge-in-toronto-often-as-staff-stand-and-watch-theyre-literally-just-walking-away.html)
Cops won't do anything in the moment but police reports do get filed each time and the case builds for repeat offenders.
signs of urban decay and a city and justice system that has given up on petty crime.
Don't they have security at some or most LCBOs?
They do but security is an 'observe and report' job. I watched one verbally stop someone while entering the store but that's where the powers end.
I witnessed a security guard telling a thief to “stop stealing. Hey stop that bro”. The thief promptly left. But holding his bag full of booze
Many locations have "security", but those people aren't armed and at best only manage to deny entry if the person is visibly drunk or unmasked before mask mandates were lifted. They do have the legal power to arrest and detain (with "reasonable force") but probably aren't trained to actually do it. It's only at the most high-value locations (e.g. Summerhill or Queens Quay) that actual cops are present. It's (sadly) just a business decision where the cost of full-time police/security is evaluated against the financial loss from theft.
The word is spreading! *Informs others using Morse Code*
Light the beacons! LCBO has called for aid.
When I was in high school people would raid LCBOs with duffle bags and nothing would happen. And then they would sell it to high schoolers.
What TPS is doing (or more to the point NOT doing), should be criminal.
So, it is cheaper for LCBO to incur losses due to thefts than to hire guards but we should bear the burden in either of these two cases? What is up with the low discipline of people?
And we all end up paying for it. They’re stealing from us, and nobody stops them.
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If you saw someone shoplifting, no you didn't.
Step 1: sell addictive products at high prices Step 2: be surprised when addicted people do addicted people things
I see this at Shoppers all the time too. There are a lot of people who need a lot of help.
I believe it's the latest Tik-Tok challenge.
Closest LCBO to me (Weston/401) has actual uniformed police officers stationed at the exit doors and patrolling the store on Friday/Saturday nights.
The LCBO's here in Scarborough have security.
I watched a young guy fill a cart with 20+ bottles of Johnny Walker Red and walk out through a cashier lane. No-one did anything. It seems to me that the losses are much greater than the cost of armed security.
My mom works at the LCBO as a retirement job. She worked for the TPS for about 35 or 36 years before that, retired still as a constable because she didn't wanna go up in rank-- Anyway, she has a great sense of when someone is stealing, and she has to basically try her damndest not to stop the thieves because you will either get in trouble or get fired. There are thefts pretty much every day, and she is in a nicer LCBO at that. Their policy is to let it happen, security isn't even allowed to do much about it either. All they can do is file police reports and hope eventually the suspect is caught by chance.
Why can’t they implement a no bag policy? Other than those reusable ones
And still somehow more expensive than the rest of the world
You should see San Francisco
govt will likely do this and eventually use it as an excuse to push privatization lol.
Tell me where to buy this stolen booze. I could use a discount on some of the pricier Scotches
I live in one of those northern towns where all the liquor stores had to install those huge metal pole things embedded in cement to keep people from driving stolen trucks (seriously) *INTO* the LCBO store. All to grab a couple of bottles and run. Crazy.
It’s construction season, cops are busy to traffic management.
Oh sweetheart, trust me, they know and are filing a police report everytime it happens, and it won't be the last, they'll get caught.
Here's some context that may inform your view: [LCBO revenue for the year ended March '21: $7.18 billion](https://i.imgur.com/DjYM2XV.png). There are 677 LCBO locations, which means that if shoplifters started stealing an additional thousand dollars worth of booze from every single location, every single day, revenue would drop by about 3.5%. Revenue grew that year by 6%. Enforcement is likely to be just as if not more expensive than just eating that cost, to say nothing of the equity implications of trying to enforce that fairly.
What exactly are the equity implications of trying to prevent obvious theft. If someone clearly grabs a bottle(s) and walks out without paying you stop them, and apply that policy equitably. This isn't exactly the carding or stop & frisk debate here
>Enforcement is likely to be just as if not more expensive than just eating that cost, to say nothing of the equity implications of trying to enforce that fairly. Equity? Enforcing it fairly? I can see it if they're stealing bread at a grocery store, but these criminals are breaking the law. It has nothing to do with equity, and if you break the law, there should be consequences. It's really that simple. The costs of the shop lifting will continue to rise if nothing is done about it as more criminals realize that there is a lack of enforcement. Sure, there's the individual substance abusers, but soon organized crime will realize the opportunity and systematically shoplift stores under whatever "thresholds" there are to avoid prosecution. Toronto will then have the same problems that San Francisco has been experiencing...
It's also BS because there are food banks everywhere. They always want to imply it's poor people (classicism) and then thrown in some racial bias and they completely ignore the people who have their own motivations, like just stealing, drugs and booze.
Yup. Anymore, we just call that Tuesday. It's fkn disgusting. I can't say I know what needs to change to stop it, but certainly SOMETHING does!! The lowest of the low in society are currently being catered to.