Tacoma business forced to hire 24-hour security to fight theft

The recent spike in thefts and break-ins is not limited to Seattle’s borders — for one 50-year-old Tacoma business, dealing with thieves has become a daily occurrence.

“It’s been an eye-opener in just the last year, kind of coming to grips with the fact that this is the new normal,” said Melissa Rodriguez, who co-owns of Suburban Opticians with her sister, Pam Rhodes, in Tacoma.

Rodriguez told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that her dad, Lloyd Neil, started the business in 1970 “and grew the business into a successful, multi-location optician dispensary” that “treated our customers with the respect that they deserve.”

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Now, however, the scene looks a little less rosy. Rodriguez’ nephew, Jeffry Rhodes, told Dori in an email that the business has been broken into twice in the last two years, and that in the past four months, people have stolen products from Suburban Opticians a total of six times. Rodriguez said that the thefts that occur in the shop during business hours are by far the biggest problem.

“The issue is the people coming in and stealing in front of you,” she said. “That is the part that is so mind-boggling to me.”

She explained that because the designer frames are both small and expensive, shoplifters tend to slip the frames into their pockets or purses while an accomplice is distracting employees. Rodriguez called it a “divide-and-conquer mentality.”

“Let me distract the people at the front desk while my seemingly normal shopper is around the corner filling up their purse or pockets with my product,” Rodriguez said.

The high-end frames are then quickly sold for a fraction of what they are worth on buy-sell websites like OfferUp. In one case, someone stole a product from the store, and within an hour, sold it on OfferUp. The item was photographed on the dashboard of a car, which Rodriguez surmised was the shoplifter’s car.

“If you steal a $300 frame, you could sell it on OfferUp for $100 probably in 10 minutes because everybody wants a good deal,” she said.

At great cost to the business, Rodriguez has had to hire in-store security as “a deterrent at the door,” as well as someone to sit in the parking lot all night and watch for burglars. She said that many other mom-n-pop shops in the area have had to do the same.

Rodriguez, who was “born and raised in University Place,” loves her neighborhood dearly, but wants local political leaders to address the rampant crimes that are ruining the environment for small businesses.

“I feel like we need to provide the people who are trying to have brick-and-mortar stores with a little incentive to keep these doors open in those communities that provide tax dollars,” she said.

Rodriguez foresees that the days of brick-and-mortar shops could be numbered, but she feels that politicians could turn this around if they act now to help out small businesses.

“In 20 or 25 years, you’ll be able to do everything that I do online, and then there won’t be a need for brick-and-mortar,” Rodriguez said. “But I really feel like there’s an opportunity now to help out and maybe pass some levies in our area that will provide for more police services.”

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