Edinburgh store owner Dennis Williams and Glasgow-based Natalie Lightfoot both shared their experiences of retail crime in Scottish Parliament last week at a meeting of the Scottish Grocers’ Federation’s Cross-Party Group for Independent Convenience Stores.
Their concerns were then put forward by group convener, SNP MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands Gordon MacDonald, at a meeting of the parliament on Thursday 19th to discuss Retail Crime and Anti Social Behaviour.
Natalie spoke of the lasting trauma she suffers, caused by two break-ins at Londis Baillieston, which took place within 21 days of each other in 2016, as well as more recent incidents of shoplifting and anti-social behaviour.
She suggested a number of measures at the meeting that could be implemented to help fight retail crime:
- Establish a self-reporting scheme in order that low level crime is measured, highlighting hotspots and helping retailers to support each other and be on alert when incidents happen in their neighbourhood.
- Investigate the possibility of introducing small grants to independent convenience stores to partially cover the cost of better security which will help deter crime.
- Revise the guidance around the use of CCTV, covering the front of premises in order that cameras could be more effective in gathering evidence, and can also be used as a deterrent to would-be shoplifters.
Natalie told SLR: “We need to keep pushing for real change because it’s all out of control. Folk are dying in our jobs just trying to earn a living.”
Meanwhile, community stalwart Dennis Williams, who runs Broadway Convenience Store with wife Linda and daughter Sophie, shared that this month – for the first time in 20 years – a high value amount of goods had been stolen while the shop was open.
Dennis relayed the incident to SLR, explaining: “There were three men hanging outside with hoods and masks, then they came into the shop … one lad just put a load of vapes into a bag and took off. It happened in about 30-45 seconds.”
The incident left staff shaken and Dennis disheartened, especially when, despite reporting it, he wasn’t contacted by local police for several days. He claimed that this type of response was the reason thousands of shoplifting crimes go unreported. “There’s that many incidents that don’t get put in [reported] because retailers know nothing’s going to happen and that’s very sad. If you look at some of the stats, shoplifting is spiralling out of control.”
MacDonald drew the chamber’s attention to the retailers’ harrowing experiences at the meeting of parliament last week, as well as highlighting alarming shoplifting figures reported by ACS and SGF, claiming that there were 5.6 million incidents of shop theft recorded in the UK in 2023 compared to 1.1million in 2022, and that there had been a 41% rise in shoplifting in Scotland since 2014 costing store owners between £5,000 and 12,000 each year.
He said: “Local people are dependent on the independent convenience store sector to provide the everyday necessities of living in that area. We need to address the issue of shoplifting in our communities before it becomes an epidemic and threatens the viability of many of these stores.”
