Posting photos of known shoplifters and beating ASBOs on “feral” youth who terrorize retailers is necessary to combat the current wave of abuse, crime and harassment facing retailers across the country, a spokesman for the industry.
Incent Jennings, CEO of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association (CSNA), said he would like to see a similar name-and-shame campaign used in Northern Ireland to expose shoplifters and other petty criminals used here to scourge of anti-social practices. behavior towards retailers.
Speaking on RTE One’s Prime Time program on Tuesday night, he said: “There’s a very real problem. It’s soul-destroying. We need zero tolerance.”
The current affairs program highlighted the problem of out-of-control youth and children who shoplift, use racial abuse, and physically threaten and intimidate shop assistants in supermarkets and convenience stores across the country.
“RGDATA, which represents more than 4,000 independent supermarkets, said levels of abuse and harassment of shop workers are “out of control”, while supermarket giant Tesco Ireland said its staff are assaulted and threatened with violence on a daily basis,” the report said. .
Tara Buckley, Director General of RGDATA, said: “The amount of crime, day in, day out, shoplifting, robbery, assault, harassment, racial attacks, sexual harassment…our members are really concerned.”
“Young staff are being harassed; the racism staff coming from other countries are dealing with; spitting, kicking, hitting, yelling and making a scene in the store, throwing things at them. It’s actually getting out of hand.”
Store employees have faced a spate of harassment, thefts and violence since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the report.
Shane Gleeson, who runs five Spar stores in Limerick city, told RTE: “I had a bottle of wine broken and was threatened with the broken glass. I’ve had boys with needles. My son was threatened with a knife.”
