SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane Police detective recently arrested a teen who stole thousands of dollars worth of alcohol from South Hill stores over the course of several months. Then, he sold it to other minors.
After his arrest, detectives wanted to understand why the teen repeatedly stole from some stores, but not others. Turns out, he targeted stores that didn't use certain theft prevention strategies.
"The stores that kept getting hit, didn't lock up anything," Detective Bob Mosman said. "So, when I talked to the stores that were locking everything up, they were having basically zero liquor thefts. So I went to the other establishments to try to appeal to them to change their corporate policy."
Detective Mosman thought locking up liquor might deter sales. But he found that wasn't the case.
"Some of these companies decided, 'we're taking too big of a hit, we need to do something,' " Mosman said. "So they became proactive, and to their surprise they went 'Wow! Now we're getting zero liquor thefts and we're still making the amount of money we were before.' "
It's a step not all stores take, according to Mosman. And as a result, they often fall victim to alcohol theft, a problem he said has an even larger impact on the community.
"It's not just a mercantile or an establishment losing money," Mosman said. "It's juveniles that shouldn't have alcohol in the first place, getting access to that, and selling that alcohol to other juveniles. That increases DUI possibilities."
Mosman adds, businesses often build theft into their budget. Basically anticipating how much money they'll lose to theft each year. But by simply locking up, it could solve both problems.
"It doesn't have to be a grocery store, it could be a retail outlet and they all have that built in," Mosman said. "But I think they have to make a conscious effort to use some of that money to do some proactive things to help curb crime in their store."
Implementing proactive strategies is an ongoing conversation Detective Mosman is now having with local businesses. He said it's just one more way to help curb crime.
