Super Target Menifee, CA Arson Shoplifting Fire

[storewanderer]

Standard Super Target hours used to be 7 AM to 11 PM, back in the 00's.

[ClownLoach]

The creep responsible has been arrested. The store is set to reopen Monday. He caused $11.3 Million dollars in damage to the store. Aside from the Home Depot in the San Jose area that burned entirely to the ground it is unusual to see the dollar amount of the damage reported. With such a high cost of damage can see why we are now looking at cases where the entire store is closed permanently when one of these scumbags starts a fire to steal a couple hundred dollars of merchandise. This guy tried it in the wrong county, Riverside sheriff and DA will make an example of him even with the weak California laws.

https://patch.com/california/murrieta/a ... uthorities

[ClownLoach]

This store reopened Monday. Apparently it was a herculean act to get it going so quickly but the volume made it a critically important store to reopen in an expedited manner. Store appears to have new carpet and might be new linoleum as I don't remember it having a dark beige racetrack on the grocery side (just in the aisles). Basically if you didn't know they had a fire you couldn't tell, which is the way it should be. Appears the majority of the softline merchandise was replaced, and other areas including all of the groceries. Reading on Reddit posts this apparently is the highest volume Target in California now and the 6th highest in the company? If so it certainly shows why they needed to pivot back to larger buildings as it never is so crowded that it is uncomfortable to shop. It is always consistently busy round the clock so the traffic pattern might be spread out more than other locations.

[storewanderer]

Did they do their "backroom remodel" to this store yet?

Reno Target can't stock its shelves since that project. Sparks Target is now getting its "backroom remodel" (should call it a sideroom remodel with how it is built). I cringe at what will happen there once it is done.

[ClownLoach]

Did they do their "backroom remodel" to this store yet?

Reno Target can't stock its shelves since that project. Sparks Target is now getting its "backroom remodel" (should call it a sideroom remodel with how it is built). I cringe at what will happen there once it is done.

This store evidently has a large enough backroom to not need it. The problematic remodels entail small backroom stores where Target installs moving storage racks to free up floorspace for order fulfillment and drive up storage. Basically by using rolling racks they eliminate the aisles between them. Problem is then only one aisle can be accessed at a time in each block, and sounds like there are safety hazards as well as someone could be crushed if employees are lazy and don't lock the racks when they walk in the aisle then another employee tries to turn the cranks to move the rack without looking. Sounds like employees hate these racks in the stores that got them. A standard Target backroom can have 70 to 80 regular aisles so imagine the space if they replaced with blocks of 10 racks connected together on sliders - the entire stockroom can now fit in a corner. Most of these stores also moved the employee break room from the front to the backroom to make space for drive up orders. Target has many techniques for backrooms. Costa Mesa has an off-site warehouse and their own fleet of trucks. They added onto the former garden center to create the fulfillment space. Norwalk built a two story stockroom on the back of the building.

[Alpha8472]

Now I know why my local Target expanded. The front of the store used to have redwood trees and landscaping. They chopped them all down and expanded the front of the store out towards the front parking lot. That new space must be the new stockroom.

[ClownLoach]

Now I know why my local Target expanded. The front of the store used to have redwood trees and landscaping. They chopped them all down and expanded the front of the store out towards the front parking lot. That new space must be the new stockroom.

Reading posts on Target employee groups it seems like what Target did to have the small format stores work was install these professional rolling storage racks with large cranks on them. The idea is that they would be able to have enough backroom storage to run Target processes in a fraction of the floor space. As Target has expanded their online capabilities (100% of their e-commerce orders ship out of a local store now and they're starting to do their own deliveries) they needed to make room in full size stores so they decided to implement the same equipment in stores with smaller back rooms. This would free up space for a packing and shipping area, move the break room to the back of the store, and then enable the front of store breakroom area to become the new order pickup storage area.

What I am hearing is that the regular stores struggle with this moveable racking because they do so much sales volume. Before if multiple workers needed to be in the same general area pulling stock for orders and the sales floor it was easy, now there is only one aisle open at a time. So in the busy stores this becomes a backlog and potentially a safety hazard as their employees are supposed to stop and lock "brakes" on these moving racks before they walk into an aisle. If someone else isn't paying attention they start turning the crank and the other person can be injured or potentially crushed. Apparently the brakes aren't perfect either and Target has actually told employees to always bring a large piece of equipment such as a U Boat dolly with them into the aisle in case the racks start moving (they would collide with the dolly and stop). In addition the open aisle isn't wide enough to fit a traditional 10 step rolling ladder, so they're using ordinary household A frame ladders to pick items from the top; to me that is an unacceptable safety hazard as it is impossible to maintain 3 points of contact when holding merchandise and ascending/descending the ladder. Apparently some stores stopped using the top portion of storage and moved to having additional storage containers behind the store instead due to the safety issue, which of course is very unproductive and adds rental expense if the landlord even permits such use (many majors such as Kimco do not allow storage trailers and some cities require expensive permits). It sounds like they grossly missed the mark here and spent a fortune installing this equipment, and now they're having to go back and expand stockrooms where they can then remove and throw away this racking. For stores that can't be expanded and this racking doesn't work they're going to have to make tougher decisions, possibly downsizing the floor as we've heard some Walmart stores are doing or potentially stopping e-commerce orders from shipping out of those locations.

This may explain the situation in Reno that keeps getting documented here with the trashed store they can't keep full after the backroom remodel. I suspect that it is probably an inconvenience but good leadership could coach the team on how to work around the single aisle access issue and probably reduce footsteps at the same time. I see a lot of problems but this shouldn't prevent the store from being stocked. In addition Target had the most innovative truck process in retail, they used to scan every box and their system would determine if the item would fit on the shelf or be overstock - if overstock they would use a red sharpie and line out the truck label then throw it all in a pile to put into storage bays. They eliminated this when overnight teams went away. Now 100% of incoming freight goes direct to the floor on truck day and whatever doesn't fit goes back to the stockroom, so a store situation like Reno shouldn't be happening where the shelves aren't being refilled each morning at 4am.

[ClownLoach]

Standard Super Target hours used to be 7 AM to 11 PM, back in the 00's.

Upon reopening they've reduced the hours and now close this store at 10pm.

[Alpha8472]

Many Target stores used to close at 11 PM, but now they all close at 10 or earlier.

[ClownLoach]

Many Target stores used to close at 11 PM, but now they all close at 10 or earlier.

They've pretty much moved to different hours at each store. This particular store opened a bit earlier than the chain at 7am and was closing at 11 still. I think the fire spooked them and certainly more issues happen at night than in the day so they made the reduction. This was the only store in the area that still had an 11pm close, so now there is one less option for late shopping. There have been a lot of hours reductions at Target in the last year though. Many 11pm stores pulled back to 10pm, and I believe all the midnight closing stores also pulled back.