Every morning when Chris Lawler opens the doors of his Canberran pharmacy, he knows that some customers will not come and buy, but to steal.
Mr. Lawler has been running his pharmacy for 12 years and said that theft was only part of doing daily.
The Apotheek Chain his store is part of $ 150,000 a year for shoplifting in three stores.
“It’s something we see all the time – every day,”
Mr Lawler said.
He said that people just came in and took things out of the shelves, sometimes filling shopping bags with products before they left the store directly for employees.
“They can be verbally offensive if we confront them,” said Mr. Lawler.
He has seen the staff in revenge for calling shoplifters. On one occasion, a thief urinates on products as a retribution, making them unsaleable.
Response from the police
The pharmacy has CCTV cameras and reports the most thefts to the police.
Mr. Lawler said that he always reported incidents of shoplifting to the police, but officers rarely visited the store. ((ABC News: Mark Moore))
“We call the police, but often it is not a priority to deal with small theft products,”
Said Mr. Lawler.
‘Normally they don’t normally come to the store.
‘They usually tell you that you have to issue a prohibition message – in this way the next time the customer enters the store [the police] are able to act. “
Online Reporting Portal
ACT Policing has expanded its online reporting tool with theft of stores and lost real estate such as tools stolen from a UTE or a stolen bicycle.
The online portal, used for the first time in June 2023 to report material damage and vandalism and from 2024, dangerous driving, enables residents to report crime incidents without calling the police or visiting a police station.
Act Policing Chief Police Officer Scott Lee said that the portal allowed a better allocation of police sources.
Chief Police Officer Scott Lee says that the online portal is extremely successful since the beginning of 2023. ((ABC News: Mark Moore))
“Online reporting our Call Takers frees to respond to more urgent and more serious matters,”
he said.
“The reaction of the police to things like that does not change. It is the same reaction that we offer, regardless of how you report this.”
Chief Police Officer Lee said that the police would still be triage, and although officers would not necessarily be present with every reported incident, they would be registered.
“Those things are being treated seriously and we investigate those things,” he said.
Since the founding of 2023, more than 3,600 incidents have been reported via the portal.
More could be done
Mr. Lawler said he would use the portal instead of the frequent calls he carries out to the police and he hopes that action will be taken, in particular against repeated perpetrators aimed at small companies in the city.
“I hope this information helps the police to do something about those individuals … and a little more difficult to get down to be a bit of a deterrent,”
Mr Lawler said.
He said more could be done to protect small companies against shoplifters.
A problem is that staff cannot do anything about a customer until they try to physically leave the store without paying for their items.
“Even if you catch them that they put it in their bag, it is really difficult to stop them,” said Mr. Lawler.
“The system is currently not working. The theft seems to be increasing.
“Theft is a huge problem for small companies.”
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