A grocery store chain is banning unaccompanied minors within make a choice shops after 6 p.m. and big luggage in Washington, D.C., and Maryland as a part of a brand new coverage geared toward curtailing rampant retail robbery.Massive Meals showed to Fox Information Virtual in a remark on Monday that the chain’s revised coverage will have an effect on make a choice shops “to mitigate the unparalleled ranges of product robbery” that has made industry “unsustainable.””Retail robbery in our marketplace space impacts everybody,” Massive Meals stated in a remark. “It limits product availability, creates a much less handy buying groceries revel in, and, maximum seriously, places our pals and shoppers in hurt’s approach.”The chain’s new coverage, which went into impact on Thursday, will have an effect on all seven places in D.C., two in Baltimore and 3 in Prince George’s County, Maryland.UNSUSPECTING SHOPPERS IN MULTIPLE STATES FALL VICTIM TO ‘DISTRACTION THEFTS’The measure bans the ones below 18 from coming into its shops with out an grownup after 6 p.m. and luggage greater than 14 inches through 14 inches through 6 inches are prohibited in maximum shops. In shops that permit huge luggage, shoppers will have to consent to having the bag tagged earlier than coming into and searched earlier than leaving.As retail robbery stays a evident factor in towns around the nation for the reason that coronavirus pandemic, Capital One information displays that shops in Washington, D.C., misplaced $120 million in income to robbery in 2022, inflicting the town to lose $7.21 million in retail gross sales tax greenbacks. 
The up to date insurance policies will have an effect on all Massive Meals places in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Pictures/Record)Massive Meals stated those measures are the newest it has carried out to mitigate robbery and violence in its shops. The chain stated earlier measures come with “restricting self-checkout, expanding safety, restricting exits, operating with police to extend their presence, locking up high-targeted robbery pieces, and banning luggage over 14″ x 14″ x 6″ in make a choice shops.”THIEVES HIT 3 7-ELEVEN STORES IN 20 MINS, HOURS AFTER NEWSOM SIGNED ‘SMASH-AND-GRAB’ TACKLING BILLSEven with the addition of those new insurance policies, Massive Meals stated they most probably nonetheless received’t be a silver bullet that reins within the out-of-control robbery observed at its shops.”Not one of the techniques we deploy is without equal way to the issue we are facing,” the remark stated. “Nonetheless, we proceed to spend money on efforts to enhance protection for our pals and shoppers and scale back robbery.” 
Different strategies that Massive has used to counter retail robbery come with restricting self-checkout, expanding safety, restricting exits, operating with police to extend their presence, locking up high-targeted robbery pieces. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Pictures/Record)A D.C. Metropolitan Police spokesperson informed Fox Information Virtual that police proceed to paintings to battle problems reminiscent of retail robbery and are in verbal exchange with shops all the way through the town.General crime in D.C. is down 19% year-to-date in comparison to remaining 12 months, in line with publicly to be had information at the police division’s web site. Violent crime was once down 35% thus far this 12 months in comparison to the similar time remaining 12 months, whilst robbery was once down 3% right through this era.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe police division does no longer destroy down robbery statistics into extra explicit forms of robbery on its web site.
