King Soopers' SWAT Team

https://www.9news.com/article/money/...4-e9a9caf9550a
https://www.the-sun.com/news/1505083...-king-soopers/

It seems crime is so rampant in our city that Kroger has hired armed security to battle the miscreants. The forces now stand ominously at the exit of most Kings in the area, demanding to see shoppers' receipts like it's a third world country.


This bothers me in many ways.


Every inch of the store is already under surveillance. Kroger likely has AI loss-prevention running in the background, so adding a guy with a pistol at the exit feels more like intimidation than security.


The Gestapo ask for a receipt, glance at it for half a second, and say thanks. Never once have I seen them count items or compare totals. Pure theater. And let's be honest-are they really going to use deadly force on Granny over a forgotten can of kitty chow? They have no arrest powers, so at best it's a tackle-and-hold routine until the real cops arrive.


All this does little except alienate customers. Weren't they once the store with the slogan "Our People Make the Difference"? Now we're all suspects in our own neighborhood market, standing in yet another line waiting for Barney Fife to allow exit.


Kroger created this mess with self-checkout. Instead of adding a band-aid guard at the door, why not put those resources into opening another lane? Between the self-checkout "helpers" and the armed guard, you've got three extra employees who could actually speed things up.


I'll drive the extra three minutes to Safeway. At least they don't treat me like a criminal for buying broccoli.

They've had armed guards at the Table Mesa King Soopers ever since they reopened after the shooting but I've never had anyone ask to check a receipt.

What neighborhood is this?

When the Security person says "I need to see your receipt" I look them in the eye and tell them "Go Fu$&K Yourself" and walk right past them. To date, I have yet to have the Security person push the subject. They simply let me walk on by. I will not allow corporations to treat me like a criminal because they are too lazy to do their job properly.

They have zero authority to demand to see your receipt... and if they place hands upon you, that's an assault charge and minimum 50K lawsuit.

I?ve occasionally seen open carry at KS in the Springs


Academy & Austin Bluffs

Kroger girls say there is no Safeway. Wait until they cruise the 'hood in Apache gunships and drones...

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Originally Posted by eddiememphis

https://www.9news.com/article/money/...4-e9a9caf9550a
https://www.the-sun.com/news/1505083...-king-soopers/
Kroger created this mess with self-checkout. Instead of adding a band-aid guard at the door, why not put those resources into opening another lane?

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This dude does not care how fast King Soopers can get him through checkout.

CRS 18-4-407. Questioning of Person Suspected of Theft Without Liability

If any person triggers an alarm or a theft detection device as defined in section 18-4-417(2) or conceals upon his person or otherwise carries away any unpurchased goods, wares, or merchandise held or owned by any store or mercantile establishment, the merchant or any employee thereof or any peace officer, acting in good faith and upon probable cause based upon reasonable grounds therefor, may detain and question such person, in a reasonable manner for the purpose of ascertaining whether the person is guilty of theft.

Attachment 99304

These merchants put themselves into these "Lets optimize our profits" scenarios with self checkout, not providing free bags, check out using a phone app then whine about the poor results of their bad decisions. Self Checkout + forcing customers to pay for or provide bags to carry their purchase = Increased Probability for Theft. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that outcome.

At a minimum, these stores should be giving away free bags at checkout as that would at least make it much easier to identify potential thefts. That and the bag itself is an advertising marketing device with the store logo on it. They could at least write off the bags as a marketing expense.

Open up the human staffed checkout lines and give away free bags. Product loss by casual Theft would plummet. Or double down on your poor business model and add Rent-A-Cops to harass your customers.

CHA-LEE is 100% correct. Maybe they’ll shift things back in time… “stupid is as stupid does, Mrs. Blue.” - Forest Gump.

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Originally Posted by CHA-LEE

These merchants put themselves into these "Lets optimize our profits" scenarios with self checkout, not providing free bags, check out using a phone app then whine about the poor results of their bad decisions. Self Checkout + forcing customers to pay for or provide bags to carry their purchase = Increased Probability for Theft. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict that outcome.

At a minimum, these stores should be giving away free bags at checkout as that would at least make it much easier to identify potential thefts. That and the bag itself is an advertising marketing device with the store logo on it. They could at least write off the bags as a marketing expense.

Open up the human staffed checkout lines and give away free bags. Product loss by casual Theft would plummet. Or double down on your poor business model and add Rent-A-Cops to harass your customers.

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Given the numerous studies showing the move away from plastic bags is actually worse for the environment, they should rescind that stupid law. But we all know they never will.

I don’t even bother looking at them and walk right by without saying a word.

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Originally Posted by brutal

Given the numerous studies showing the move away from plastic bags is actually worse for the environment, they should rescind that stupid law. But we all know they never will.

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They charge a dime for each flimsy plastic bag... but for whatever reason now wanna charge for paper as well.

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Originally Posted by Clint45

They charge a dime for each flimsy plastic bag... but for whatever reason now wanna charge for paper as well.

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Silly state law...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clint45

They charge a dime for each flimsy plastic bag... but for whatever reason now wanna charge for paper as well.

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Except you can't even get plastic bags in the stores any more.

However, you can buy 1,000 of them from Amazon for 3 cents a pop.

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Originally Posted by brutal

Except you can't even get plastic bags in the stores any more.

However, you can buy 1,000 of them from Amazon for 3 cents a pop.

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Exactly what we did. Amazon and now have bags for cat box cleaning.

We expend quite a bit of effort to avoid shopping in person at the corporate grocery stores.

Place pick up orders
Place orders to be shipped to home
Place orders with online vendors
Source fresh products from producers - farmer, rancher, produce our own
Search out local independent grocers

We facilitate the above with extensive planning and careful pantry/freezer inventory management.

After many years of massaging/adjusting/managing our system have found we spend less, waste less and can afford better quality foods.

A good example of independent grocers is Heritage Market in Eaton, CO and Ridleys in Laramie, WY.

We especially like Heritage Market for being a pleasant place to shop. Good selection, courteous employees, no self check out. They automatically bag with good quality(reusable) plastic bags and a very polite courtesy clerk carries your groceries to your car. The experience is well worth the extra couple percent in cost over Kroger and others.

Even the poorly managed and expensive independent market in our nearby small town is preferable to big corporate stores.



If you're unarmed, you are a victim

Every store I have been in asks you to "self report" the number of bags you used.

Funny, I've always used zero.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buffalobo

We especially like Heritage Market for being a pleasant place to shop. Good selection, courteous employees, no self check out. They automatically bag with good quality(reusable) plastic bags and a very polite courtesy clerk carries your groceries to your car.

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Wow! You live in 1958. Watch out for Wally and The Beav playing stickball in front of the Donaldson's place!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by buffalobo

After many years of massaging/adjusting/managing our system have found we spend less, waste less and can afford better quality foods.

The experience is well worth the extra couple percent in cost over Kroger and others.

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So does your experience costs + or - ?

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Originally Posted by eddiememphis

Wow! You live in 1958. Watch out for Wally and The Beav playing stickball in front of the Donaldson's place!

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Damn straight and we like it. There is value in service.

If you're unarmed, you are a victim

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Originally Posted by kidicarus13

So does your experience costs + or - ?

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If you mean cost in dollars above Kroger and other chain stores, approx 10-12%.

Value of being well stocked with better quality food? Tough to put a number to it but enough that the effort is worth it to us. Couple hours of our time each week.

If you're unarmed, you are a victim

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Originally Posted by OctopusHighball

Every store I have been in asks you to "self report" the number of bags you used.

Funny, I've always used zero.

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I bring my own reuseable bags. If I forget them, I'm not paying for paper. The orginal law, as presented to the public, claimed it was an anti pollution measure specific to plastic, and heard nothing of any change to include biodegradable paper. I believe that must be a new corporate policy. The funny thing is if I go through a cashier, they never seem to charge a bag fee.

King Soopers and other retailers are drowning in theft/losses by the liberal legistlature that refuses to prosecute criminal behavior.

I show my receipt every time, just to balance out that everyone, needs to show their receipt. This is a condition of shopping at King Soopers.

-John

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Originally Posted by arbol

King Soopers and other retailers are drowning in theft/losses by the liberal legistlature that refuses to prosecute criminal behavior.

I show my receipt every time, just to balance out that everyone, needs to show their receipt. This is a condition of shopping at King Soopers.

-John

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Did they post a sign on the door? Did you sign terms and conditions? Pay a membership fee?

If you wear a shirt and shoes, you've satisfied all conditions upon entry. Pants may be optional.

Yes, there is a sign at the door that a receipt is required to exit the store.

-John

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arbol

Yes, there is a sign at the door that a receipt is required to exit the store.

-John

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Interesting. Thank you for clarifying - at that point I agree with you. We don't have any of that over here w/ Kroger (City Market).

This is all new, and I am sure King Soopers does not want to do this, but they are being stolen blind, and have to respond.

-John

The closest Safeway and KS to me have eliminated the hand-carry baskets because people were running out the door with them.


Ghetto giraffe in the KS parking lot.


No receipt BS yet

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arbol

This is all new, and I am sure King Soopers does not want to do this, but they are being stolen blind, and have to respond.

-John

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There are better ways to respond than treating every customer as a suspect.

This is one of the tenets of Leftism- Social Equality.

True equality can only be achieved by dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Instead of going after shady characters who look like they are going to steal, otherwise known as racial or social profiling, they treat everyone as a criminal, thereby appearing egalitarian.

This is guilty until proven innocent. The guard's glance at a receipt doesn't stop crime - it's conditioning. It normalizes compliance, the idea that everyone is a suspect.

It feels very Soviet: not about solving problems, but about reminding you who's in charge. And that's what I don't like.

And for those saying "what's the big deal, it's just a receipt check," ask yourself this: what's the difference between treating every shopper as a thief because a few people steal, and banning all ARs because one lunatic went on a spree? One is a private business policy and the other is government overreach. But the mindset is the same

In both cases, the innocent majority are punished for the actions of a tiny minority. It's easier to blanket everyone than to target the real problem. And that's exactly the kind of lazy, heavy-handed thinking I don't want to see normalized.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arbol

This is all new, and I am sure King Soopers does not want to do this, but they are being stolen blind, and have to respond.

-John

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Well, the shoplifters are easy to spot.

They are the ones pushing a cartload of unbagged beer, steaks, and Tide detergent bypassing the registers entirely.

Happens at least a half dozen times a day.

focus on them rather than the 95% of customers leaving the self checkout with maybe one or two items that didn't scan.

How do you spot a shoplifter?

In today's society, you often times can't. If I were profiling, about the only (mostly) safe guess is that the 83 year old grandmother probably isn't.

The greatest generation is gone.

Are their hippies shoplifting in their 60's and 70's? Some, Yes.

Rich white kids? Some, Yes.

Poor rednecks? Some, yes.

Minorities? Some, yes.

Gen Z: Proportionally a bit more.

I am not sure if you guys are pragmatic or not, but we live in a new world where the average salary to afford a house is about 140k/year, and mores have degraded due to a counter-balancing social movement that has diminished the wrong of theft on the personal level for more folk.

Sure, you can spot the guy with a cart full of steaks and laundry detergent. But you're not spotting the 50 other people who shoplifted in various ways besides that.

So how does retail diminish losses? They have to put mild barriers in place to diminish enough motivation so those 50 other people don't put forth the effort.

Mr. Beezlo running out shirtless with 50 steaks and twenty containers of tide isn't affected by any of it.

But the Gen Z kid trying to swap a Nintendo switch for apples by weight is.

It's not the end of the world or an affront to firearms violations. Strictly speaking, I don't comply if the store hasn't done it correctly (e.g. signs etc.), but it's not a hill I'm dying on either, because it is a real problem, and it's only going to be getting worse (shoplifting). Methods to mitigate it could be far, far more aggressive... think San Fransisco style fully-locked retail shelves.
But hey, they probably don't have to check receipts at the door.

Maybe the only solution is an old time solution. You hand a clerk a shopping list to fetch. Then you pay and get handed the merch.

Screen prompt: “How many bags would you like to purchase?”
Touchscreen entry: “0”

Don’t ask questions you don’t want honest answers to.


Curious how this doctrine will affect those that just don’t give a shit about their receipt (me)? I rarely bother to grab it.
How about those that opt for email receipts? (I know Kroger doesn’t use that option yet)

My last trip to the less than desirable KS closest to me (which I try to avoid) the security guard was more friendly and helpful than the store employees. It took me about 3x longer at self checkout than it should have.

Just. Open. More. Checkout. Lanes.

Seems simple enough...

Sent from my SM-A546U1 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by crays

Just. Open. More. Checkout. Lanes.

Seems simple enough...

Sent from my SM-A546U1 using Tapatalk

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It's 2025, no one wants to work. Can't hire enough people to staff most retail stores. Even those that are 100% staffed cannot get their employees to come to work (e.g. call-outs, sick, "emergencies", etc)

I already spent my tax refund, so when are we supposed to get 2025 stimulus checks? Any other gov't check will also suffice.



https://www.5280.com/king-soopers-is...nt-shop-there/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crays

My last trip to the less than desirable KS closest to me (which I try to avoid) the security guard was more friendly and helpful than the store employees. It took me about 3x longer at self checkout than it should have.

Just. Open. More. Checkout. Lanes.

Seems simple enough...

Sent from my SM-A546U1 using Tapatalk

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You have to pay for all those employees running around fulfilling online orders for the people too damn lazy to actually go into the store do their own shopping. The "convenience" of those who use the online pickup order and park in the saved covered parking spots and pop their trunk for the employee to load their groceries into the trunk and never get out of their vehicle. For each one of those employees, a checkout lane needs to close. We all get to pay for your laziness.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eddiememphis

There are better ways to respond than treating every customer as a suspect.

This is one of the tenets of Leftism- Social Equality.

True equality can only be achieved by dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Instead of going after shady characters who look like they are going to steal, otherwise known as racial or social profiling, they treat everyone as a criminal, thereby appearing egalitarian.

This is guilty until proven innocent. The guard's glance at a receipt doesn't stop crime - it's conditioning. It normalizes compliance, the idea that everyone is a suspect.

It feels very Soviet: not about solving problems, but about reminding you who's in charge. And that's what I don't like.

And for those saying "what's the big deal, it's just a receipt check," ask yourself this: what's the difference between treating every shopper as a thief because a few people steal, and banning all ARs because one lunatic went on a spree? One is a private business policy and the other is government overreach. But the mindset is the same

In both cases, the innocent majority are punished for the actions of a tiny minority. It's easier to blanket everyone than to target the real problem. And that's exactly the kind of lazy, heavy-handed thinking I don't want to see normalized.

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We are well past an innocent majority. We have a society today that is rife with crime, and that is increasingly brazen and cannot be stopped.

I'm reminded of the movie, Raising Arizona, where this dude goes crazy to get his child some diapers.

This is due to the fact that life is unafforable for many people today. Government, has spent so freely, that normal people cannot afford to live.

The people that are stealing from King Soopers, are not doing this because they are evil, but rather they need to do this to survive.

And that is why it is right for King Soopers to fight back. King Soopers is not the Government. The Government should be helping people survive. Not King Soopers.

There is nothing Soviet about this, other than people are hurting, and stealing, and the store is trying to stop them.

-John

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arbol

The people that are stealing from King Soopers, are not doing this because they are evil, but rather they need to do this to survive.

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People steal from King Soopers and beg on street corners do so because it's easier than working, and in most cases, pays better also.