Copyright The Boston Globe
But hiring security personnel and putting antitheft tags on merchandise would strain her already thin profit margins on a street with some of the highest rents in the country, she said. “[It’s] a burden on small businesses,” she said. “Everything is very tight here, and the rent is very high.” Her unease is shared by business owners across the city, from the Back Bay to Downtown Crossing to the South End. According to crime data from the Boston Police Department, incidents of shoplifting this year increased by 11 percent citywide compared with data from this time last year, rising from 3,086 to 3,433. But arrests for shoplifting related incidents, according to BPD data, are more than double what they were this time last year, from 341 to 712. Just down the street from Gu’s new boutique, four teenagers allegedly stole more than $6,000 from a Lululemon store Oct. 13, police said, the latest in a string of high value retail thefts in the city. In response to the problem, BPD has increased the presence of officers on foot, bicycle, and vehicle patrols “to address shoplifting and other quality of life issues” in the city Boston, as part of an ongoing “safe shopping initiative,” said spokesperson Mariellen Burns. The city launched the initiative in March 2024, a partnership between police, the Suffolk County district attorney’s office, and retail associations with the goal of tracking trends and prosecuting repeat offenders, said Ryan Kearney, vice president and general counsel for the Massachusetts Retail Association. At a July press conference about the initiative, Police Commissioner Michael Cox said the program is “designed to deter crime, hold perpetrators accountable, and send a clear message that there are consequences for these crimes.” But a recent rash of high-value shoplifting incidents have raised questions about its effectiveness. “There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Kearney said. “We’re appreciative of the accommodations and the reallocation of resources to address this problem, but we still think it’s going to be a long time.” “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” he added. On Sunday, a Boston man on probation for larceny allegedly stole several items from a CVS store on Massachusetts Avenue and threatened an employee with pepper spray before running out, the Suffolk district attorney’s office said. Over the summer, shoplifters targeted a Sunglass Hut in Faneuil Hall at least seven times, making off with over $18,000 worth of merchandise. The Lululemon in the Prudential Center was the target of thieves at least three times last year. On Oct. 18, three women allegedly stole clothes from an Alo Yoga store in the Prudential Mall after kicking an employee who confronted the group and demanded they return the items, according to a police report. In that instance, mall security stopped the women and recovered the merchandise before letting them go and calling 911, the report said. They have still not been arrested, police said Thursday. At a hearing Oct. 17, Boston city councilors heard from a local community leader and a resident, both of whom offered bleak assessments on the state of shoplifting in the city. “Small businesses are having a really hard time,” Randi Lathrop, president and chief executive of Lathrop Consulting, which represents small businesses, said at the hearing. “Bottom line is, every time somebody loses something, it hurts their bottom line.” Citywide statistics from previous years show large jumps in a category of crime called “other larceny,” which includes shoplifting, from 6,631 in 2022 to 7,547 in 2023, an almost 14 percent increase. In the district that includes Downtown Crossing, reported “other larceny” incidents increased by 126 from 2022 to 2023, from 1,180 to 1,306. In the district that contains Back Bay, reported incidents of “other larceny” jumped from 1,603 in 2022 to 2,086 in 2023. In an interview Tuesday, Boston City Councilor Edward M. Flynn said shoplifting in the city is a “major problem,” although he acknowledged that authorities have “made progress.” “It’s bad for the quality of life and for the city,” Flynn said. “When theft is left unchecked, neighborhoods pay the price.” Mayor Michelle Wu’s office deferred comment to Boston police Thursday. Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said in a statement that “we need to strengthen partnerships between city agencies, public safety including the District Attorney’s office, and local businesses, while also addressing the deeper issues that lead to theft, like addiction and lack of opportunity.” Officials said enduring high numbers in shoplifting incidents are due in part to increased reporting by business owners. “We fully anticipated that increased retail-theft enforcement through the Safe Shopping Initiative would result in increased reporting, increased arrests, and increased prosecutions,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement. “All of these outcomes have occurred. These increases are attributable to enhanced enforcement and reporting, not increases in shoplifting occurrences themselves.” But in an interview, Lathrop said the city needs to do more to protect small businesses. “Frankly, I don’t know if people at City Hall really understand small business shoplifting,” she said. “To make this work, you got to go door to door.” Kearney said store employees are often instructed not to intervene during shoplifts, “because we’ve seen in the past that those types of instances can quickly turn violent,” he said. He cited an incident from 2019 when a store employee at Giblees Clothing in Danvers tried to stop a group of thieves from stealing expensive Canada Goose jackets. That employee, a man in his 60s, was knocked to the ground and “lost a couple teeth” in the process, according to Kearney. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid,” he said. A large part of the safe shopping initiative, according to Michael Nichols, president of the Downtown Business Alliance, is differentiating between thieves who steal for “need” versus those who steal for “greed,” and prosecuting members of the latter category. Hayden said his office regularly seeks incarceration and stay-away orders for “repeat offenders and violent offenders.” “This office routinely prosecutes shoplifters, with a focus on repeat offenders,” Hayden said. “Assertions that shoplifters are not being arrested or prosecuted are inaccurate.” Rachael Rollins, the Suffolk district attorney before Hayden, said her office would not prosecute 15 of what she described as minor crimes, including shoplifting. Kearney said that Rollins’ policy sent the “wrong message” to shoplifters, and that the increased number of thefts are the result of “policy decisions that have been made in the past coming home to roost.” “If you don’t stop somebody when they were a juvenile stealing, they then become a repeat offender,” Kearney said. “If you intervene and hold them accountable early, the hope is that they will learn their lesson and then that will stop.”
