In 2021, a widespread retail theft pandemic cost the US close to $100 billion. Smaller mom-and-pop shops are being left behind as retailers are being pushed to hike prices or close their doors. Insurers are also refusing to offer assistance.
The Washington Examiner will look into the roots of the shoplifting epidemic, the role of the cartels, the financial burden on both large and small retailers, and the involvement of ineffective prosecutors in this series, Mayhem on Main Street.
Surviving Small Business: Flatiron’s Deborah Koenigsberger
The impact on mom-and-pop shops will be the main topic of Part One. In the Flatiron District of New York, Deborah Koenigsberger has operated two modest enterprises for more than three decades.
The former model claims that conditions for small-business owners are scarier now than they were when she first moved to the now-hip neighborhood in the late 1980s, during the height of the crack and heroin epidemic.
Koenigsberger’s stores have been robbed and held up at gunpoint more times than she can count over the last few years.
She has witnessed empowered shoplifters establish eye contact with her, take products from her boutique, and saunter away carefree while emboldened colleagues have resigned on the spot out of fear for their own safety.
While the repeated assaults have made Koenigsberger less confident, she is nevertheless standing her ground.
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Price Hikes and Surrenders: Theft’s Impact on Businesses
I have a business to run, and for me, it’s very personal when you steal from me,” she said, according to the Washington Examiner.
I simply feel as if I am being assaulted repeatedly.Small mom-and-pop stores across America, like Koenigsberger, are brutally targeted by thieves, some of whom belong to organized organizations and others who are simply out for themselves.
Small-business owners are therefore either raising prices to make up for the loss or, in the majority of cases, giving up.
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