Alpha8472 wrote: ↑April 6th, 2024, 2:02 pm
The retail theft rings paid people to get jobs in Asset Protection for Walmart. Many people were fired for that.
Many Walmart stores now have the new systems where each fire exit has a camera and the shopping cart wheels lock when carts get close to the fire exit doors.
Some Walmart stores in the San Francisco Bay Area closed their Auto centers and sealed the doors. There are some that have roll down metal doors over all entrances including Auto.
This is a good idea if they can seal those and still comply with fire code somehow. I feel like the cameras at fire exits don't deter much, of course they're necessary and they give valuable footage when you go press charges (except more recently the mask issue). I've just seen too much.
The locking cart wheels stop small time thieves.
I noticed Burlington in Reno (not closing) has a security guard stationed by one of the fire exits standing there. It is a low traffic part of the store with little merchandise even stocked. That looks like the most boring job, I am surprised the guard could stay awake.
Another problem is thieves setting fires. Social media indicates there is a rash of thieves lighting the Walmart toilet paper and paper towel aisles on fire so they can try to sneak out of the store with large amounts of merchandise unnoticed in the chaos. This apparently happened at a fully remodeled Walmart in Rialto recently. Walmart needs to install localized fire sprinklers or extinguisher systems in these paper racks to put out these fires immediately without flooding or excessive smoke damage on new build and remodel stores. There have been so many fires in the news the last few years in retail stores large and small... I can think of 6 different fires set to cover shoplifting between 2019 and 2023 in my last company all of which were total losses of the merchandise storewide due to smoke and water damage, two stores were just permanent closures. These scumbags destroy millions of dollars to steal a few hundred, and as long as the stores aren't making appropriate changes to stop the problem they are running the eventual risk of death(s) occurring in a shoplifter set fire event.
There was a CVS in Sparks that had a fire a number of years ago. Really dumpy old smelly Longs Store not in the best neighborhood, at the corner of Oddie and El Rancho. It had a fire and all the sprinklers went off and the inventory was deemed a total loss. The store was a huge mess, full of out of stocks, and obviously had a shoplifting problem with the CVS 1 employee on duty up front program it was operating under. This was before CVS installed self checkouts and at this store the 1 employee on duty was always up at a checkstand (still had those from Longs). I never thought of it but I wonder if it was a theft attempt that set the fire in the store. CVS repaired the store from the water damage and restocked it and it actually looked pretty good, and it hadn't been stocked that fully since it was a Longs. But then not long after CVS quietly closed the store with little notice.