Stores making changes to combat liquor theft

Stores are finally making some changes following a story KIRO Radio first broke a few weeks ago that stores were losing thousands of dollars to liquor thieves.

Industry insiders, the police and the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, told us that organized crime rings have turned almost their exclusive attention to liquor.

They’ve given up Tide, razors, baby formula, diapers and Oil of Olay just to concentrate on ripping-off liquor because it is so easy to walk out of some stores with shopping carts full of booze.

The numbers they’re talking about have been staggering. “In the first three months, it was anywhere from $30,000 up to $50,000,” said Jana Jorgensen in the Seattle City Attorney’s Office. “Now, I’m hearing it can be from $500 to $1,000 a day just walking out the store.” That’s happening at stores all across the region, according to Jorgensen.

The question asked by police, ‘Why aren’t the stores doing something to stop this?’ Sergeant Cindy West in the King County Sheriff’s Office believes it’s only a matter of time before stores have to respond. “As time goes on, they’re going to figure out that their losses are adding up, and they’ll probably take some different measures to keep those items secure or at least from being stolen so easily.”

It looks like that day has arrived.

Stores are starting to lock their liquor up. Others are adding more cameras. Some are closing their multiple doors during certain hours and others are even adding private security guards to monitor the liquor aisles.

Joe Gilliam is the President of the Northwest Grocery Association. “On a case by case basis, you’re going to see some places where there’s a higher crime rate, they’re going to lock it up and it will either be in cases or behind the counter,” he said.

This is the first time the industry has recognized, on the record, that there is a problem with liquor theft.

Even now, Gilliam looks back to the transition five months ago and doesn’t think the stores underestimated the potential for theft or should have done anything differently. “No, I don’t think so,” Gilliam said. “Organized retail theft has been around for a long time. We have a very good record of combating it. We’ll be able to handle this. This is not going to be an animal we can’t contain.”

Gilliam doesn’t believe the problem is as significant as we’ve reported. “It is not rampant across the state,” he said. “The numbers you’ve heard are way over-blown. About $1,000 a day per store per day? That would represent almost 18 percent of the entire volume, and we’re not even seeing close to that.”

We have never reported that every store is losing that amount, only that several stores are, and with the stores refusing to give us the actual loss numbers we’re left to estimate as best we can given the evidence presented to us by the police and other sources.

The problem is big enough that stores are making changes.

I found 16 locked glass cabinets protecting the liquor at the Seattle Safeway on MLK at Othello. You need the key from the register now to get a bottle. I found a security guard in the liquor aisle at another store. The message is getting out.

It appears the stores are tired of getting ripped off.