Organized retail crime causes increased food prices in Boston Stop & Shops

Stop & Shop, faced with “more economic challenges than ever”, Stop & Shop asks Congress to say goodbye to laws in order to stop organized retail crime.

According to the regional supermarket chain in Boston and elsewhere in the state of Bay, inpatient retailers are fighting “with the enormous effects of organized retail crime”, and measures are necessary to prevent this.

President Roger Wheeler has announced the problem in a letter that was sent to members of the Massachusetts delegation in response to a request at a potential price to Stop & Shop's Urban Store locations.

“Theft in retail is an important concern for retailers like us, and we need legislators to act quickly by driving the legislation.” The ability of our company to continue to invest in our business, our customers and our communities is based on measures in congress to stop organized retail crimes. “

Wheeler emphasized the well -known organized trade law that was introduced again last month, which is promoted “against Flash -Mob -MOB robbery and complicated retail theft schemes”.

The legislation, which was reintroduced from the chairman of the Senate Justice Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-IOWA) and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NEV.)

It would combine “expertise from state and local law enforcement authorities and representatives of retail” and at the same time “create new instruments to support the investigation of the federal government and the persecution of organized retail crime and contribute to recapturing lost goods and revenues”.

More than 84% of retailers across the country have reported that violence and aggression have become a major concern from criminal activities since 2022.

The national federal estimates estimated that theft incidents rose by 93% in 2023 compared to 2019.

In his letter, Wheeler emphasized how Stop & Shop of the “common practice” in the retail industry follows that the pricing varies depending on the location. He referred to factors such as rent, the size of the business, how much it takes to transport products into business, and “shrink (including losses due to theft)”.

Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markay and Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern wrote a letter to Wheeler at the beginning of this month and urged “Answers why the prices for food in low -income communities seem to be higher.

Boston Youth volunteers at the Hyde Square Task Force found that Stop & Shop calculated more than 17 identical objects in the Jamaica Plain Store than in his location in Suburban Dedham and the legislators prompted to consider concerns last year.

The company reacted by lowering the prices in JP, but Warren said this month that “we still see higher prices for families at other inner -city locations. It is no coincidence that the municipalities of the working class with sky -high prices get stuck.”

“Under no circumstances, Stop & Shop takes into account the demography of a quarter if you set the prices,” said Wheeler in his letter. “The specific process for determining prices is very confidential and competitive for every larger retail business.”

Wheeler swore that “the prices at all Stop & Shop locations in the Commonwealth will be reduced by the end of 2025.” The company has more than 60 shops in the whole of Bavarian.

Last autumn, Stop & Shop closed eight of his grocery stores in Massachusetts as part of a consolidation effort, in which chain closed 32 below -average shops in the northeast.

The retail association of Massachusetts supports the law on organized retail crime from the federal government and the invoices in the State House “to” offer stakeholders in the states that are necessary to combat specific activities related to ORC, “said General Counsel Ryan C. Kearney to the herald.

RAM estimated in 2023 that the organized activities of criminal theft costs retailers in Massachusetts, which are around 2 billion US dollars a year. In 2018, the state legislature increased the crime threshold for theft from $ 250 to $ 1,200.

A few Taunton women were charged in 2023 that they were stolen in Stop & Shop products from shops in a three-month organized, fake voucher operation in Stop & Shop products.

“Organized retail crime is still a growing problem in the nationwide, with retailers throughout the country performing unprecedented theft and violence in their business,” Kearney told the herald.