New Ordinance Receives Mixed Reactions

This past September, Long Beach officials put into effect a new ordinance that would greatly change the operations of local food retail and drug retail stores, in a major effort to combat ongoing cases of retail theft in the city.

Officially titled the Self-Service Checkout Staffing Requirements Ordinance, the city is the first in the nation to  enforce these type of rules. According to the official ruling, the ordinance requires all Drug Retail Stores and Food Retail Stores in Long Beach that provide self-checkout to have at least one employee in attendance for every three self-checkout lanes. And as an additional rule, customers using self-checkout may only be allowed to do so with a maximum of 15 items.

Since its ruling was officially put into effect on Sept. 11, the ordinance was met with mixed reactions from Long Beach residents. Some have even shared their criticism on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Reddit, stating how the ordinance can lead to new problems such as longer checkout lines for shoppers who can’t rely on self-checkout anymore.

“I genuinely thought the lady at Ralphs was lying because she couldn’t articulate a clear explanation, I assumed it was something they’d just made up,” said one Long Beach resident on Facebook. “Honestly, if retailers invested in hiring and properly training more staff, we probably wouldn’t be stuck with these ridiculously long lines. But here we are. One person at the register.”

“If businesses are hurting, they should hire more cashiers or more security,” commented one resident on Reddit. “Seems obvious.”

Other Long Beach residents have also expressed their support for the ordinance, some saying it seems like a logical choice to prevent retail theft.

“Makes sense to me,” said one user on Reddit. “If you don’t trust me enough to take a can of deodorant off the shelf by myself, why would you trust me to ring it up by myself?”

Long Beach residents have also stated they have no problems with the new ordinance, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their needs as customers.

“As long as they staff the checkout counters instead of like two open lanes with long lines then I’ll be fine,” commented another user on Reddit.

Beachcomber has reached out to several retail stores across the city of Long Beach for their opinions on the ordinance, including that of Vons, Albertsons and Target, but were unable to get a response at this time.

While an exact number of how many retail thefts were reported in the state of California are not available, a report made by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the rate of aforementioned thefts has increased since 2015, and then again during the later stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also found that, in 2023, there were about 500 reported retail thefts per 100,000 population, in the state.

For more information on the Self-Service Checkout Staffing Requirements Ordinance, you can visit the city of Long Beach’s official website at https://www.longbeach.gov/edo/self-service-checkout-staffing-requirement....