Furious Big Apple business owners are tearing down state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie over his refusal to increase penalties for violent shoplifters, with some saying “It’s free season for retail workers.” Some people are furious.
Gov. Heastie (D-Bronx) last week blocked Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to stiffen penalties for criminals, bizarrely declaring, “I don’t think increasing penalties are ever a deterrent to crime,” leading to widespread controversy. caused anger.
“How can we deter crime other than penalties?” Nelson Eusebio, who heads the National Supermarket Association and the Save the Supermarkets Coalition, furiously told the Post on Monday.
“Our employees are on the front lines dealing with shoplifters and criminals,” Eusebio said. “It’s opening season for retail workers in the city.”
An employee at a CVS on the Upper East Side was stopped in November when a shoplifter armed with a hammer struck a 37-year-old employee in the hand and some of the store’s windows. the employee told The Post on Monday. What can you do?
“Nobody wants to deal with it,” the employee said of criminal activity. The amount of items taken during the assault was “so large” that the store had to be locked down, even if it was low-priced items.
“They’re not just one or two [items]It’s taking up the whole shelf,” the worker said.
The Lexington Avenue store has now closed in May, but a representative for the chain did not cite violent theft or other shoplifting as the reason. Follow your local Patch outlet.
But the employee told the Post that the employee joked that “now the items are locked, but the people are not.”
Eusebio, who represents 600 supermarkets in Gotham and beyond, estimated that assaults against members alone have spiked 20% this year, based on complaints he receives.
The number of retail thefts citywide has increased by more than 6.5% so far this year to 14,910, compared to the same period in 2023, according to the New York City Police Department’s latest crime statistics. 3,987 cases have been recorded.
In her budget, Hochul called for an explosive crackdown on retail theft, which she estimates costs Empire State retailers $4.4 billion annually. She also wants to increase penalties for criminals who target store employees, she said.
But Mr Heastie, who holds a particularly powerful position as council leader, refused to support the plan.
“We don’t want it to seem like we’re not concerned about stopping what’s happening to retail workers. We take that very seriously. I just have an idea,” he insisted last Tuesday, after saying that Albany lawmakers should not consider criminal convictions when negotiating the Empire State’s huge budget.
“If we continue to deal with penalties, what happens after people are arrested? We’re just worried about what happens after something has already happened,” Heastie said.
Former Governor David Patterson said he was shocked by the speaker’s position.
“It’s like a revolving door,” Patterson said on 770 WABC’s “The Cats Roundtable” on Sunday. “Without harsher penalties, there’s no chance of any rehabilitation, no chance of repentance before the parole board. No,” he said.
“[Heastie] He is a very good friend of mine and a very polite person. I would love to have a one-on-one conversation with him,” the former governor added.
Mr. Heastie said he remained open to some of Mr. Hochul’s plans, particularly cutting off organized theft rings.
Retailers and authorities told the Post that these organizations sell illegal products through online resale sites such as eBay and Facebook Marketplace, creating a large underground economy.
“I would rather commit a crime than have a job in New York,” Francisco Marte, president of the New York State Bodega and Small Business Association, told the Post on Monday.
Marte, whose family alone owns 20 bodegas in the city, said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by Heastie’s comments.
Marte said some Pauls “want to put the lives of business and working-class people at risk.”
Salvatore Lopiccolo knows this well.
In May 2023, Lopiccolo was working as a security guard at a Walgreens at the Port Authority Bus Terminal when a shoplifting suspect was caught on video assaulting him, and he later had a date in court. He was absent from the event and was exposed to adverse winds and died.
“Didn’t I foresee this exact scenario?” Lopiccolo joked at the time.
New Yorkers will also have a hard time forgetting former Harlem bodega clerk Jose Alba. He stabbed the violent customer in self-defense and was ultimately charged in the violent man’s death.
The charges against Alba were eventually dropped after widespread protests.
Heastie did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment Monday.
