Convenience store managers and employees have been raising the alarm over what they say is an increase in brazen store thefts in Barrie’s downtown.
The thieves have been described by the local merchants as being part of the homeless population in Barrie.
On Oct. 21, city police arrested a man of no fixed address who is described by police as a "habitual offender" after repeated arrests for variety store thefts in the area.
“They come here to steal T-shirts, candies all the time,” Robin, an employee at the Ultramar gas bar and variety store at the corner of Anne and John streets, who only supplied his first name, told BarrieToday.
“I can’t leave the cash counter. I can’t chase those guys. They steal and then they run back to the bushes all the time (to the nearby encampments). Sometimes we complain to the police, but we never get any response back,” he added.
A couple of months ago, Robin says a man came into the store and stole a large quantity of lottery scratch tickets and cigarettes, worth almost $7,000.
“The employee went to another room to get more cigarettes that the man asked for and, while he was there, the man went behind the counter and robbed the store before running away,” he said. “The police found the guy, but we didn’t get anything back.”
In a security video clip supplied to BarrieToday, a man can be seen going behind the counter and grabbing the items.
The vacuum cleaner machines at the rear of the gas bar are also regularly targeted by thieves.
“They keep finding change inside and break those down all the time,” Robin said.
Shoplifting at his store is “the normal thing here. It’s a problem every single day,” he lamented.
With just a single employee operating the shop most of the time, Robin says thieves know staff can’t chase after them and leave the counter unattended.
“If I leave the counter, someone else could come in here and steal the cash, too," he says.
T-shirts and hoodies are a favourite target. All told, Robin says approximately $250 to $300 worth of items are stolen every week, on average.
Distraction theft is a popular tactic.
“They come in a group. You can’t focus on every single person in the store, and I can’t even do anything,” he said. “I get scared, too, sometimes.
“Sometimes they carry those hunting knives. Three or four months ago, when I opened the gas station at 5 a.m., I told a guy to leave the property. He was trying to find change in the vacuum machines. He showed me the knife.”
John Kim, who manages Dunlop Convenience Centre, which is located downtown on Dunlop Street East adjacent to Memorial Square, also catches sight of weapons during thefts of his store.
“Some are armed with box cutters, which they pull out of their pockets, so that’s a safety issue that I have,” he told BarrieToday from behind clear plexiglass mounted over the counter.
Kim says he has no way of protecting himself in that situation.
“It’s too scary," he said.
Kim describes the downtown area around his shop as “having a lot of homeless people hanging around.”
Thefts happen every couple of days with people snatching candies, chips, pop ... “whatever they want.”
Calling the police sometimes takes a half hour to an hour for officers to respond, he said.
“And for what? Candies for one or two dollars?” Kim asked.
The business has insurance, but it doesn’t cover small-cost items.
“If it’s a crime of $5,000 dollars, then sure,” Kim said.
When asked how store owners could solve the problem, Kim laughs. He has cameras in the store, but shrugs his shoulders, as he says it's not worth wasting his time pursuing the thieves.
“Certain people, not all of the homeless people, are stealing,” he said, adding that he recognizes the regular robbers who try to steal items from the store. “So when I see them, I lock the doors. They keep trying.”
Kim says the shoplifters are mostly appear to be between 20 to 30 years old, and are brazen in their thievery as they know “nothing will happen to them,” in most cases.
He calls the problem “a headache” and is forced to accept the problem as part of doing business.
“I am aware of a few occurrences that involve convenience stores,” police communications co-ordinator Peter Leon told BarrieToday. “These are often crimes of opportunity and carried out by opportunistic individuals who will attend stores where there may be only one person working or where those working do not have a full view of the store at all times.”
Leon also noted that Barrie police has a “significant presence” in the downtown area, including patrols with uniform officers and special constables from the community safety and well-being unit.
“These officers are on foot, bicycle, patrol car and utilizing the side-by-side (vehicle)," he said.
Leon suggests store owners can invest in CCTV cameras, convex mirrors and realigning their shops to allow for a better view of the aisles. They can also reduce the height of products on the shelves and limit the number of patrons allowed in the store at any given time.
“Some stores may have also acquired product for sale that wasn’t available until recently,” he said, referring to recently approved alcohol sales in corner stores. “This type of theft has been on the rise, simply because of what is now being sold – it will attract a clientele that didn’t previously exist.”
Leon noted store owners can also report incidents of theft through the police service’s online reporting system.
“If these incidents are not reported, we won't know that they are taking place," he said, adding such reports help city police "deploy our resources accordingly."
Not far away, on Victoria Street, where an established homeless encampment sits, a 30-something woman sits on a battered wooden chair among a trash heap at the side of the street. She is smoking crack.
“People do what they need to do to survive,” she told BarrieToday, not wanting to give her name.
“It doesn’t matter who is doing it — it’s the fact that people are being pushed to do it, because they don’t have the means to support themselves,” she said, noting that sometimes “stealing is survival.”
She said she hasn’t resorted to stealing from nearby stores.
“I’m hungry, but not starving.
