City Council - Small Business & Professional Licensure Committee Hearing on Docket #1633

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For the record, my name is Brian Worrell, District 4 City Councilor, and I'm the Chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Small Business and Professional Licensure. Today is October 17, 2025, and the time is 10.06 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.smallbiz at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, please email Our Central Staff Liaison Shane Pack at shane.pac at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 1633. ordered for a hearing to discuss retail theft and the impact on small businesses and residents in the city of Boston. This matter was sponsored by Councilor Ed Flynn and referred to the committee on September 10, 2025. Today I'm joined by my council colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Murphy and Councilor Flynn. We've also received letters of absence from Councilor Durkan and Councilor President Louijeune. I want to first thank everyone for their time for being here today. In my district, we have pushed for increased activity from C-11, Community Interaction Team, which is also known as the CIT Team, and more foot patrols in our business districts. We've had a number of convenience stores frequently targeted, and I'm interested in figuring out how we can improve collaboration and Communication Efforts. I'd now like to turn it over to the lead sponsor for any opening remarks. The floor is now yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for chairing this important hearing. I want to say thank you to Superintendent McLaughlin from the Boston Police Department, the opportunity to work for many years with the superintendent as a probation officer Respect the work that you have done, Superintendent. Also want to acknowledge Ryan Kearney from the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. Retailers and small businesses are a critical part of our economy. and our neighborhoods as well. So we want to say thank you to you and to your team. I also want to thank Randy Lanthrop, who is a community leader in the South End and Back Bay area. that has been involved in supporting businesses practically her whole life. So I want to thank Randy and her husband Bob for being here as well. Retail theft impacts not only our small businesses due to the loss of merchandise, but it also raises prices for consumers on goods to compensate for the lost revenue. Residents also have concerns about the consequences of theft on their quality of life as well. We've had issues for years, maybe decades, due to the impact of The Opiate Crisis. Retailers were forced to lock up items. We see it frequently, soap and shower products or razor blades, baby formula. More often than not, consumers are required to press a button to call a clerk to unlock, access, or purchase everyday items. Several weeks ago, I held an in-person meeting in Chinatown with community partners with the Boston Police The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office to discuss stolen food around Boston that's literally sold in Chinatown at the Chinatown Gate. There has been a rise of stealing and reselling food in and around the gate, as I mentioned, that also has left the neighborhood with an increase in public safety and public health concerns. According to data from the Council of Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, shoplifting increased in Boston 27% from 2023 to 2024, 55% from the first half of 2019 to the same period, 2024. Industry experts have also noted that these figures may be conservative estimates due to varying policies between stores and reporting low level offenses. In 2018, the larceny limit was raised from $250 to $1,200. Any theft under that amount is basically considered shoplifting or a misdemeanor that can result in one year in jail or a $300 fine. Felony larceny, on the other hand, can carry up to five years in prison and a significant fine. The City of Boston's Safe Shopping Initiative partners with Boston Police, the District Attorney's Office, and local businesses to address shoplifting. and prevent shoplifting from becoming violent as well. Again, due to the opiate crisis, shoplifting in recent years and concerns from residents simply purchasing items, it's appropriate for us to have this conversation. to support our small businesses, to support our residents, and to support the police officers as well. It's critical to address these concerns, evaluate the impact of recent and existing policies take meaningful steps to protect the city's economic vitality and quality of life of those who live, work, and shop here, whether it's on Newbury Street or Boylston Street in the Back Bay area or it's on Washington Street in Dorchester. It's on Beach Street in Chinatown or Broadway in South Boston. In my opinion, we have to have zero tolerance for stealing. It hurts small businesses. It hurts the residents. It hurts the consumer. It hurts the city of Boston. Again, I want to say thank you to the panel for being here and more importantly for the work that you have done throughout your careers in helping build a better Boston. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilor Murphy. Councilor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. First start off by thanking all of our small businesses across the city who invest and take a chance in our neighborhoods. And it's these business districts Thank you. Thank you. Our business districts in our neighborhoods have been thriving since the pandemic with work from home and small businesses, you know, need our support always. But today's hearing and thank you, Council Flynn for filing this. is about something we've all seen and heard from our constituents, the growing problem of retail theft and the impact it is having on small businesses and everyday residents. For small businesses, it's not just about the lost merchandise, it's about survival. The cost of theft often leads to higher prices for everyone. And in some cases, stores have been forced to lock up everyday essentials, which we all know it was maybe a few downtown stores, but now even many of our small corner stores Have things locked up or behind the counter so it doesn't give you the same safe, welcoming feel. And I know the business owners wish they could get back to that for sure. For our residents, especially seniors and working parents and families, it's become a daily frustration and a reminder that safety and civility of our neighborhoods matter. We also need to recognize that some of this stems from larger crises, the addiction, poverty, mental health, and that no single policy or department can solve this alone. But I believe that our job as a city council is to look at the full picture, the policies, partnerships, and all of the unintended consequences. Today I hope I can listen, learn, move forward, and thank you to the panelists for being here to help figure out how we can come up with some solutions to help the business owners, but also the residents who want to get back to what seems like normal living in our neighborhood. So thank you.

Thank you. Now we'll turn it over to the panel to introduce themselves and to present any information that they may have. The floor is now yours.

Okay. Good morning, Chair Worrell, Councilor Flynn, Councilor Murphy. My name is Paul McLaughlin. I am superintendent with the Boston Police Department. I am the chief of the Bureau of Investigative Services. I would like to thank all of you for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the Boston Police Department and the men and women who serve this city every day. While retail theft is a challenge for store owners, it is also a community issue that affects the safety, confidence, and quality of life of every Boston resident. When theft becomes routine and unchecked, neighborhoods suffer, local retailers shut their doors, jobs disappear, and residents begin to feel less secure in the places that they live and shop. The Boston Police Department has listened to those concerns from business owners and community members looking for a solution. Through the formation of the Safe Shopping Working Group in 2024, The Boston Police Department has begun the collaborative work to address this issue. If I could just give a little bit of a background on the Safe Shopping Initiative, I'll try to be brief. The Safe Shopping Initiative was formed as a working group to address growing concerns related to retail theft in the City of Boston. The group is made up of representatives of the Boston Police Department, the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, Retailers, both national and local, and business groups. The initial intent was to listen to different perspectives on the problem in order for the Boston Police Department and its partners to develop strategies and best practices to better combat the problem throughout the city. As the name suggests, it was important for the group to look holistically at the entire shopping experience and address all concerns ranging from the safety of shoppers and employees to the significant financial loss experienced by many retailers. In addressing this range of issues, the hope was to make the shopping experience a more enjoyable one thereby challenging negative inferences and encouraging people to shop in the city. While this group recognizes that we may never completely stop all instances of shoplifting, There is a need to prioritize in three very important areas. These areas include repeat and chronic offenders, high value offenders, and most specifically those who use violence and intimidation as a means to accomplish their goals. It is important to stress that this is not a plan to arrest our way out of a problem. As always, officers' discretion remains on the table at the time of response to deal with issues such as poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health. In addition, the partnership with the Suffolk County DA's office allows for prosecution paths other than incarceration, such as service over sentences. From the beginning, one of the concerns of all participants was the perceived lack of importance that had been placed on shoplifting and retail theft as a crime. especially in the courts. In group discussions, effective reporting, data collection, and information sharing between partners was identified as a significant gap in forming an effective and proactive strategy. By providing better and more detailed information across the board, we are able to show the courts the offenders who are truly driving the problem. With better data, the prosecutors are able to justify asking for appropriate sentencing. Even in the short time since this group has formed, a little over a year and a half, We have seen significant successes in areas where we have not seen them before, where the information sharing between retailers, the Boston Police Department, and Suffolk County District Attorney's Office have led to repeat offenders being held accountable with what would be considered significant jail time in the realm of retail theft. I'm happy to answer more specifics about the program and how it came to be. But that gives you a little bit of an idea of what we're trying to do.

Excellent. Chair Worrell, thank you for hosting this meeting. Councilor Flynn, for your support in sponsoring Ryan Kearney, General Counsel of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, We are a statewide trade association that represents 4,000 businesses operating in the retail, restaurant, and wholesale sectors in Massachusetts retail industry, obviously with a number of members in Boston. We started out a hundred years ago as the main mainstay shops that you see down in Downtown Crossing were created to to kind of advocate for themselves. So it's fitting that this has come full circle 100 years later for us to kind of come together and try to figure out a way to, again, protect those businesses in Downtown Crossing. Our members are looking for one thing, and that's a safe environment to do business for their employees to come to work and for their consumers to shop. That's what we're looking for. But both locally and nationally, the retail industry continues to deal was a significant increase in theft and violent incidences that are involved when people are trying to be apprehended for theft. These crimes not only affect retailers financially, but also put employees and customers and their safety at risk. Just a couple of statistics from 2019 to 2023. There was a survey done by my national counterpart at the National Retail Federation that indicated 93% of asset protection folks have seen an increase in the average number of shoplifting incidents per year nationally. 90% of them also reported that an increase in the dollar loss amount per incident also occurred. And then from 2024, as Councilor Flynn had indicated, there's been an increase of about 29% in shoplifting incidents on average. and that is in line with BPD's most recent numbers that I've seen from January of 2024 which showed a 15% increase here in Boston. Part of that obviously is going to be the increased reporting that I'll talk about in a second, but again it is in line with what we've seen nationally trending. So during this time from 2019 to 2023, the retail industry had made significant investments in technology, security personnel, training, to detect, investigate, and deter theft. But unfortunately, this is a larger community problem, and there's only so much the industry can do on their own and so on without a public partner on the other end of this thing. And so RAM with a number of other business community groups had approached the mayor, Boston Police Department, Suffolk DA's office and at the time then President Flynn of the Council to get some response. And unfortunately, we were able to, fortunately, we were able to and many more. I've taken the form here in Boston as the Boston Safe Shopper Initiative. I'll highlight three things that I thought were a positive advancement from this initiative. One is it opened up the lines of communication. Not only did it bring awareness to this issue of more than just entry-level crime, but the bigger issues that's hiding within that chaos. We talk about the stealing for need. This is bigger than that. And within those people stealing for need, there's people that are stealing for greed. doing this for economic gain They're stealing, reintroducing into our lines of commerce, whether it's through online markets or through black markets. But again, it has a community impact. It also allowed for us to align our priorities. We understand there's juveniles, there's people with mental health issues, there's people with drug addiction that are better served with services. That are going to stop this cycle versus just throwing them away in jail and locking them up and hoping for the best. They're just going to get out and continue to prey on our stores. But on the flip side, when we do have those repeat offenders, when we do have the high level offenders, when we do have people using violence or gangs, gang activity coordination, We want to have an ability to point that out to folks and say, hey, this needs a second look. And it also increased response. So before the State Shopper Initiative was set up, my members were not confident that they would make a call for service on a theft City Council, City Council, City Council, City Council, City Council, now have direct lines of communication with those area districts to let them know that there's something going to be happening. That has led to the second key that I think is here is the increased police presence. The responsible calls for service are one thing. The details and the officers on the beat, again, provide a deterrent effect. and then also in-store anti-theft operations. BPD and some of our members have partnered with each other to do some of these low-level theft intervention issues. And by the end of the day, The community that is doing this stealing knows quickly that those particular locations are hot and are being monitored and there's a deterrent effect there. The other issue is record keeping and reporting. Again, we are all about partnering with the government to on their priorities to help people that need services versus sentences. But now that we have a recording set of data, once those people are given their opportunity to take advantage of those Services. We now have a direct database that, hey, if you're going to continue to do this, you're not going to be given that benefit of doubt second, third, or fourth time. The record keeping also gives us an actual data set and allows for us to Put forth meaningful prosecution. Again, those individuals that are having aggregating factors to their crimes are being met with. Here's the data that shows that you are not doing this just for your own needs. You're doing this for economic gain, and the data backs that up. As for results, our members are pleased with the initial results of these efforts and remain cautiously optimistic, but there still remains a lot to be done. Our first meeting of this initiative DA Hayden had indicated this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. To date, we have identified the course and where we're trying to get to. We've established the rules of the race, but we've only just really started out on this course. So it's going to take some time before we're able to determine whether it's effective. There's going to be adjustments to the approach as we go through. But at the end of the day, the good news is that we have a reliable network, an actual data set, and a willingness amongst the parties to make this a priority here in Boston. So we are very hopeful that this is going to continue to benefit our communities and keep us a little bit safer. With that I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you Superintendent McLaughlin and Mr. Kearney for being here and for your work and your service. I'll now turn it over to my council colleagues starting with the lead sponsor for first round of questions. Councilor Flynn, the floor is yours.

Thank you Mr. Chair and thank you Superintendent and thank you Ryan for this important partnership and Ryan the The number of arrests have gone up for shoplifting, but that also means to me that the Boston Police are taking this Thank you very much. The crime has gone up, but that's really about the partnership, isn't it? About the partnership between the Boston Police and the various stores that we are taking this issue seriously. And yes, we are only starting out on it, but it's important we work together and We do have a plan going forward. Is that accurate? That is accurate, yes. Okay. So prior to that, when we didn't have all of those arrests, people would be stealing stuff and it wouldn't be, they wouldn't call it in or they wouldn't, They wouldn't be arrested, but it was still having a significant financial impact on the owner of that particular business.

Absolutely. So our association has been continuously trying to raise awareness about how this is continue to grow and how this is impacting our communities. Before we started tracking and having, we didn't mention it, but the BRIC, Currently now, Mika Jones over there has been doing a great job of creating a database that we can now look at and say, okay, this person, this is their first offense, this is a juvenile, these are the mitigating factors. We now have an ability to track that at a more granular level. But industry-wide, when I talk to my members internally, they already have this data set I think part of the issue was prior to BPD making it a priority and showing up to all these calls, it had a deterrent effect on our members to report some of this stuff, especially the lower level stuff because it takes manpower, it takes people to sit down, have to write out these reports, show up to to the hearings and support that. And so we were challenged by the mayor's office and by BPD, we want you to report everything so that we have an actionable data set and now we have that. So I think it's been a positive advancement.

Well, I certainly support that. I think that's the way to go. But let me ask you prior to that, prior to when the police are making these significant arrests, Was the dollar number of thefts, was it significant?

It was significant to begin with. You had mentioned the increase in the felony threshold. Our industry has statistics that show that once we started raising that threshold, that the value per incident had gone up. I think it was around 200 to 250 prior and now it's a little it's around 700 750 and we've I'm sure The superintendent's officers would be able to testify to this, but my membership to a T, every asset protection person that I've spoken to has had an incident where they arrest somebody and the person says, I'm below my limit. Meaning that they're below their $1,200 felony threshold. And that's the kind of message that they've been receiving, whether it's through the lack of enforcement prior to the Boston Shape Shopper Initiative, or just through word of mouth on the street that, hey, you're not going to get arrested and you're probably not going to get a meaningful prosecution unless you're above this certain limit. So the folks that are more sophisticated are keeping it at that level.

Thank you, Ryan. Superintendent, I mentioned in my opening statement the partnership I developed with the residents of Chinatown, but also with Captain Driscoll and the District Attorney. and I know you're aware of it too, but we do see a lot of people that are stealing goods, that are selling food products in and around the Chinatown gate. Certainly a major problem in my opinion. They're selling food to residents, but it's also a health issue as far as I'm concerned as well. I did have the public health department there and part of the task was. But are you seeing people buying food or selling it because there's a huge market and I actually I actually saw a restaurant owner buying food. I read in the Riot Act and I said that's very unethical, certainly illegal. Public Health has it as far as I'm concerned. But are we seeing much of the people buying and selling food illegally, Superintendent?

I'm aware of the things that the incident you're talking about down, incidents you're talking about at Chinatown. I think we know that's going on. I've talked to Captain Driscoll about it, and he's addressed it at the district level. I mean, I think citywide, as far as actual food being resold, in a similar fashion, we don't see that across the board, at least not overtly. I think where you see the resale is more in the items that are being stolen, especially specific target items that have a significant resale value. I think that's where you're seeing the resale, whether it's online, whether it's and so on. The initial ground rules as to how we wanted to move forward, some of the things that we wanted to create. Ryan mentioned the hiring of a brick analyst dedicated to retail theft and the things that go along. with that and she's been phenomenal. Just that ability to kind of bring the information together, to collect it, to collate it, to analyze it and to put it back out Thank you for joining us. who the fencing operations are, who's selling it online, even to the point that we've seen it involved in some of our gang investigations where it's a source of funding within the gangs. As far as the food side of it, in my knowledge, that seems to have been kind of confined down to Chinatown that I'm aware of, but certainly resale is a huge issue.

Yeah, sorry to interrupt. The point that I had made earlier, I think the beneficial piece that he had pointed out is if, in fact, there starts to develop a trend where food is being stolen and then being resold in the black market, The arrests in the data that's being collected by the BRIC will start to show that out, that that's what the trend is. Right now, I think the trend is more of apparel. Electronic goods, those type of goods that can be easily concealable. Food, even if it's food to be resold on the market, I think it's more of a, it's certainly happening, but I don't see it as widespread of a problem as some of these other issues.

Okay, Mr. Chair, do I have time for one more question? Okay, thank you. So my final question for this round is, I know we've all seen reports of, and I represent Boylston Street. One side of Boylston Street, another district council represents the other Boylston Street, so I don't represent Newbury Street. But I do know that there have been a lot of Stealing of clothes or other items on Newbury Street or Boylston Street, which seems to me it's much more sophisticated or Is that much more sophisticated stealing clothes than it is shampoo? And is that more organized? But getting five or eight jackets stolen at once, maybe the jackets might be 400 or 500 bucks, That could be $3,000 or $4,000. That's a significant loss to that owner of that business. How do we deal with that type of higher level of stealing?

Well, from our perspective, I mean, you talk specifically of Boylston Street, Newbury Street, some of the high-end stores that have been the focus of significant incidents. I mean, we've deployed, District 4 has deployed significant assets to that area, plainclothes offices, regular bead offices. The idea behind that is to try to get out there and make relationships with the stores ahead of time. Understanding that this is a big problem down there, having presence there, having connections and relationships with the people in those stores so that we can get the information quickly and then hopefully be able to deter it at the time. If we don't, and similar to the incident that happened at Lululemon this past week, which was put out in the media, we then assign it to an investigator and that investigator then takes the steps they need to do to identify the people. One of those things is we've started to try to use the media in those situations much more to get that, when there's good video, when there's good and many more. Again, the data comes down to data. Can we look at that person's pattern of life in the sense of when does he hit, what day of the week, what time of the day? What's his direction of travel after he leaves the place? What's he stealing? What's the target items that are being stolen? And we try to use that to, again, to increase our deployment at times when we know that things are the busiest. Certainly, there's certain high-end stores that get victimized quite a bit. Again, just like with the The retailers that first joined up with us in this retail theft initiative. We are putting this out to all retailers that and we want these relations. If you don't have a relationship with your district community service officer or your district detective commander or sergeant, you should get one so that you have that direct connection to say, we have a problem, We know what the problem is. We see it. We see the reporting. But let's do something about it. So some stores have been very proactive with how can we do something, as Ryan mentioned, and many more. Arrests and stops and seizing the items that are stolen. It differs from retailer to retailer, but what we're saying is this is really about that relationship you make with your district with the investigators to try to kind of have that built-in relationship that you can pick up the phone and say we had this issue and we got to get to work on it.

Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you, Ryan.

And just to answer your question about whether or not that's more sophisticated, I would argue that it is. We've seen from the reporting that athletic wear, in particular down in Newbury Street and Boylston Street, Thank you for your time. I mean, the Lululemon incident, that's as simple as someone jumping online and saying, hey, the four of us are going to go meet up at Lululemon and smash and grab. and many more. Selling it online or selling it back in through return fraud or the like. So to answer your question, there is some higher level of sophistication to those type of activities.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. The chair recognizes Councilor Murphy. Councilor, you have the floor.

Thank you. Ryan, thank you for saying the difference between stealing for need and stealing for greed. touched on that in my opening statement and so did Councilor Flynn and it was brought up you know there are people who may steal for you know they need food or something warm but More often than not, I'm going to assume that people are stealing for greed. Do we have data on I'm going to assume that it's very small amount of people who are actually stealing for need.

So I can give you some statistics on that. The vast majority of the losses that we're seeing are through more sophisticated Actors versus the low-level shoplifter who's doing it for Again, it's low level, it's less of a quantity. Once you start getting to higher level and more quantities, you're obviously gonna have a larger impact on the financial losses. And those are also the individuals that are typically becoming more violent when they're confronted.

And is the $1,200 limit Each time or if you're caught more than once, do they keep a running record of your past?

Massachusetts does not allow for aggregation. In 2018, when we increased the threshold the legislature was asked by the industry to allow for some level of aggregation. There's 39 states over the past decade that have increased their felony threshold, and they all have some sort of escalator, whether it's through aggregation Whether you've been convicted once before, now if you get convicted a second time, your felony threshold is a little bit lower. That was rejected by the legislature, so I think there needs to be a revisiting of that to allow for some level of aggregation to, again,

And what is the law for people are caught and the total amount stolen was $2,000. Is it divided by four or is it who's ever holding it? How do we then?

That would have to be a question directed to the district attorney's office. If the value of the merchandise they're stealing is over $10,000, or the organized retail crime statute comes into play, which allows for heightened penalties, and so yeah in terms of how that works when it's a group of four I would I don't know how the Attorney General would excuse me the District Attorney would handle that.

We brought up the recent story in the news about Boylston Street obviously you said too that it hit the media many times it doesn't and it happens more often than we probably think but Besides those stores that we know are on Boylston and Newbury, there's many other neighborhoods. And we're going to hear from someone from the south end. I know Rosendale, Lower Mills, there's so many retail spots around the city. Are there other hot spots? around the city that the brick and the data that we're collecting from the different district offices?

Well, I think the, you know, A lot of the hot spots as neighborhoods or as areas of the city are pretty obvious, right? Downtown Crossing is a significant area of concern. South End, you know, Back Bay, Boylston, Newbury Street, obviously, is one. South Bay Mall is another. But we also see it quite a bit, Fields Corner, for instance, 500 Geneva Ave. The locations in that mall, there's quite a bit of

Like the Target that's there now? Like we've switched over a retail store often because of that.

Right, so the Target there is one, the Target in Roslindale Square. Now, if you went out to a district like Area E, Area E5, over the course of the entire district. They don't have a major problem per se, but they do have problems at very specific locations. Jamaica Plain, the Whole Foods, the Walgreens, So it's really more of, there are business districts that obviously are targeted areas, but then when you get out into the small, say the outlying districts, it's more about specific locations within the districts. And that's where the, That's where the kind of deployment and strategy comes in, you know, that each district kind of decides how they want to attack that by looking at is it a district-wide problem, is it a problem, you know, directed at certain places within the district.

And Councilor Flynn's last question touched on this but what is the advice or policy that the police or your organization give to store owners and then there's the store owners but then there's The retail workers, right? And oftentimes I'm told, and probably good advice, we don't pay you enough to harm yourself, like kind of just let them do what they're going to do. You're not going to be able to stop them. Is that something we do? Tell retailers or is there some uniform conversation that is had with store owners?

So industry best practices if you do not have the training and as an asset protection professional and how to detain people you are not to interfere. We have, if you look at that footage from Lululemon, there's a sales associate that stands there and watched the entire thing happen. She's been told to do that because when something similar like this happened up in Danvers, it left a gentleman with his jaw broken and teeth broken because he tried to step in the way and he got knocked over and he didn't have the training to do so. We tell our members best practices is to his hands off approach. Secure any evidence, secure any footage that you have so that we can then pass it along to our private partners in the BPD and let them do what they're trained to do. That is the main approach. I would suggest in terms of other things that need to be done, I think more of the same. We need more police resources dedicated to this. and we want to make sure that we continue to keep our foot on the gas rather than pat ourselves on the back and say, hey, we've set this up and that's the end of it. It needs to be a continuous effort.

And I would concur that My advice to people would be become a good witness. Watch what's going on. Get descriptions. Make a call to 911 quickly as opposed to waiting any period of time. Get that information out to the 911 caller so that officers responding might have an opportunity to apprehend.

Do we have a cost of like an annual cost of how much this has cost the city of Boston?

City of Boston, I don't have a number. Massachusetts, we estimate it between $1.5 and $2 billion in loss. That's all levels of loss, not just shoplifting. That's cargo theft. That's internal theft from employees. That's the number that we put it out.

Would property damage be included in that? I know like in the mass and cast area. I've tried to put forward a tax abatement for business owners in that area who may often have to replace windows or broken property.

So that estimate would be loss of shrink, so loss of merchandise.

Okay. Okay, I know my time is up, so I'll wait until my next round, but thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor. Before I go back to the lead sponsor, I just have a couple questions. I know most of the data or year-over-year increase are all, like, Post-COVID, do we have any like comparison to like pre-COVID numbers just to kind of get an idea of what it was before COVID?

So the 93% increase is from 2019 to 2023. So it would be a 93% increase over what was pre-COVID.

Okay, but do we have like 2018 numbers?

I can certainly go and try to get those for you.

That would be interesting. And then I know that, you know, there's the DA's initiative and then the Safe Shopping Initiative. And I applaud the administration and retailers are coming together and coordinating and taking this real seriously. Outside of sentencing and arrests and the DA's initiative, are we looking at Whether it's like public infrastructure, like lighting, right? I've heard from retailers before that sometimes the permit in the process requires two entrances, right? And which then creates more of a need for them to hire more security, more staff, to protect their assets. Are we looking at other things, like within the public infrastructure or the permanent process, how retailers are setting up their shops?

So I haven't looked at permitting process as part of the problem. But our members are certainly, for each store, it's going to be on a case-by-case basis is what they need. And they will make those investments in whether it's technology, personnel, or training to make sure that those There's one pharmacy in Downtown Crossing. There's an entrance right across from South Meeting House, but then there's another entrance with a revolving door on School Street. They no longer use that. and many more. The other, you mentioned lighting. I know that there's someone testifying later about some of the improvements that have been made down in Downtown Crossing. I am also on a working group. with the Downtown Crossing Neighborhood Association to try to address some of those kind of design improvements that we can make to deal with some of these issues. So again, beyond shoplifting, We have issues with, you know, the unhoused sleeping in store alcoves, like in the door when they start in the morning. Those type of things are things we can address, hopefully, by design, if that answers your question. But that's been taken into consideration.

And I would also say that certainly when it comes to response to retail establishments across the city, especially when there's an incident that happens, whether it's a problem like retail theft or it's Our officers and detectives often times will give advice on on kind of target hardening type advice to say, make the store less of a target. So it might be removing things from the window so that there's a view from the street. It might be a better security system, better lighting, You know, things like that that's routinely given out as, look, your store would be less of a target if you did some of these things. And oftentimes people take our advice and sometimes people don't. So I think But I've also, you know, I spent some time just as I kind of got to immerse myself and try to understand this problem when we first started this program. It's not anything I've ever been involved in. Most of my career has been Thank you. Thank you. One of our key partners in this initiative across the city. I did have an opportunity to go into their store and do a walkthrough on their store and sit down and kind of see how much work they do on the inside. to harden their own kind of properties from self-checkout issues, You know issues in South Bay Mall with the with the young kids that were going in there and causing problems You know, so so the stores again using Target as an example They're very Very, very proactive in my opinion, especially the larger chains with looking at how they can take care of business on their own inside the store. So I do think that's a big part of this solution is the stores doing the things they have to do as well.

Absolutely. The DA's initiatives, services over sentences, do we know how many shoplifting arrests are repeat offenders that are getting referred over to services over sentences? Can they get referred after the fifth incident? When do we say, now is the time to prosecute?

I don't think we have taken, that's generally a decision made Once the person gets to the court level.

Do we have any data around that? We do. Is it after five times, ten times? Do we see?

I don't have that information, no. I could look to see if anything like that exists, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, you'd have to ask the district attorney as to those statistics, and I'm sure he has them. But to Superintendent McLaughlin's point, It's taken up on a case-by-case basis and they look at all the factors involved and try to decide. I would imagine that if someone got to the fifth services over sentencing, that would be probably more than what and many more. Once you've been given that once or twice, we need to then escalate this to another level, which should include consideration of prosecution.

Thank you. And now I'll go back to my council colleagues for second rounds of questions. Starting with the lead sponsor, Councillor Flynn, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know one of the panelists brought up the importance of working with the Boston Police and the CSO, the Community Service Officer, and I thought that was a great point. Our CSOs play an incredible role in the city. I just want to highlight over the last Last eight years, in my opinion, I don't think we have enough police officers in the city. I advocate consistently for us to hire 200 police officers every year. Maybe for the next 10 years, maybe for the next 15 years, I come into this building every day trying to advocate and fight for more resources for our neighborhoods, especially public safety. It can be challenging at times, but I'm not giving up. advocating for more police. I think that's also part of the answer as well. I represent downtown Boston, as you know, love downtown Boston, I'm there I love walking around. I come into this building every day for the last eight years. I haven't missed a day. I haven't taken a day off. So I love walking around Fremont Street or Washington Street. and I would walk, sometimes I'd walk with the CSO with Sergeant Crossan and he would do an exceptional job working with businesses and residents and he would, He was professional. He understood the neighborhood. But he also understood that you just can't have people stealing or That also impacts quality of life and public safety. I think it's important for us also to acknowledge the important work our police do every day, but they also need the support of residents and members of the city council also. Probably in another month or so, we might be getting another grant, usually at this time from the federal government on kind of a partnership of cities and towns across greater Boston. The money comes to Boston, we distribute the money for public safety coordination purposes. For the last four or five years, I've had a fight with my city council colleagues to allocate this money into the Boston Police so that they could coordinate with other police departments on on these types of initiatives working together. But that's what this city should be about is working together, supporting each other and acknowledging that when we have an issue like this We have an issue like theft that we work together to address it. And having theft arrests in the city increase to me That says we are taking the issue seriously. Even though crime might be up, part one crime might be up on that category, other larceny, as it's described often, It's important for us to make those arrests to deal with it, to acknowledge the problem. And that's exactly what is happening with this task force. So just want to acknowledge the important work that you both are doing, but also other people as well. and including the District Attorney. I'm glad to be part of it and to have kind of got the ball going at the beginning dealing with public safety issues in downtown. Downtown Boston, Boston Common, but I'm also, I still have a lot of work to do on crime in Chinatown as it relates to people selling stuff openly in the Chinatown Gate. I was there yesterday. I had to kick a guy out of the neighborhood for selling stuff. Then I sent his photo to Captain Driscoll. but it's about working together. I also want to acknowledge not only A1 but the Chinatown Crime Watch Group. They do an exceptional job in Chinatown as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilor Murphy. Councilor, you have the floor.

Thank you. I also just want to take the opportunity to plug Superintendent Shin in the community service offices across the whole city. As an at-large city councilor, I get to visit all the neighborhoods and I have met small businesses, seniors, youth across our city with our community service offices. And I know they do a wonderful job connecting with our business community. But they, like all departments, need more help, especially when we have to balance where are we going to put our police officers. It's not always supporting the small businesses. making sure that this body, like Councilor Flynn was saying, continues to advocate. But Ryan, for you, What additional support or policy changes do you think we could make here in the city that would help support your businesses?

Sure. So I think to Councilor Flynn's point, I think more investment in policing and staffing up there would be helpful. The one thing that we are cognizant of is the limited resources that the Boston Police Department has and that they are also understaffed compared to historical levels. So, you know, we understand there are more, I guess, significant crimes that are occurring out there that are being kind of BPD maybe have pulled away from I shouldn't say pull away from but are you know not completely focused on because they're now having to deal with some of the shoplifting issues that we have so yeah we think that there needs to be a little bit more of a police presence and more policing from the city At the state level, we are going to continue to advocate for a decrease in that felony threshold or some level of aggregation to deal with the repeat offenders that are impacting us. But I think, again, just the continued support and partnership, I think, is more than what we expected when we started out on this journey. And I think we're pleased with that, but I think we want more of it.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. And again, I just want to just thank not only Councilor Flynn for bringing this here in order and his leadership on I want to thank everyone in the city of Boston and the businesses on coming together and also the DEA for coming together. to come up with a comprehensive plan that's not only focusing on arresting our way out, but providing services to those who are stealing for need versus stealing for greed. And most of my other questions, It's just more for the DA. And this is something that I'd probably just send him a letter on and ask him those questions Just around like services to those who are stealing for need versus stealing for greed and making sure that he has all the resources that he needs in order to help those individuals that are I'm stealing out of a sense of a need. So again, thank you.

Council, if I could just add on that, just one briefly on the DA's office role in this, because it has been a huge part of the partnership. You take one part of this out and nothing works. They have been extremely responsive to everything we've asked and I think Again, playing that role of that brick analyst, someone coming together and bringing everything into one place and then disseminating as needed has been a huge part in allowing them to know what to prosecute, and especially those really significant offenders, high value and so on, violent offenders, but also to be able to look at people for other options that might fit into whatever particular area that they have, whether it's poverty or mental health or something. Well, I don't have the statistics. I would just say that, you know, ADA Joe Janacek from Crime Strategy Bureau has been completely responsive on everything we've done and I think the DA's office, we couldn't do it without them. So it really is that, it really is kind of key to have everybody invested and involved in it full time, you know.

Yeah, and that's great to hear. And I love it when we all work together to solve the issues that our community, our residents, our small businesses have brought That is great to hear and I'm aware of the limitations of the police department because of understaffing, so it's good to have the use of technology as well. You know, I hate when people are using their cameras, you know, when something tragic has happened, but it feels like when it comes to shoplifting, it feels like most people should be using their cameras to track it in order to send it to the police department so that we can get Thank you again for being here. And we'll now move on to the second panel. And on our second panel, we have Randy Lathrop. Randy, the floor is now yours. Thank you. Any information or presentation you may have.

Thank you. I'm just going to speak today. My name is Randy Grohe-Lathrop, and I am a 40-year resident of the South End and recently Six years ago, we moved to St. Petoff area. In the past, I have 20 years of retail experience. I was in a family-owned business that was right across from Quincy Market, and I also worked on Newberry Street. for a nonprofit craft organization called the Society of Arts and Crafts. So retail's in my blood. What is really sad today is what is going on with shoplifting. Shoplifting I'm really aware of since I started in retail in the 80s. You'd have two different types of shoplifters back then and you still have them today. You have the smash and grab. Thank you for watching. and it's actually an underground thing going on. And we had that a lot over in the Quincy Market area and also on Newbury Street. On Newbury Street we would have sometimes the most well-dressed people be the ones that would shoplift the most. So I used to say to my staff, do not think that it's only going to be the young people coming in that is shoplifting. Do not judge people by that. Shoplifters and professional shoplifters, and when I call them professionals, sometimes they're just people out there, that this is the job they do. They wake up in the morning and they shoplift. Most of us go to a job, but they go up and taste steel. Businesses, most businesses do what they call keystone. They buy something for 50, they sell it for 100. That's not a big profit. You shoplift that, they've lost their margin. Big retailers buy something for 50, they end up selling it for 250. And that's why you see when you go into the big box retails like the Macy's of the world or the TJX of the world, They actually put things on sale much quicker. But bottom line, what's going on today is you have an opiate crisis. You have young people out there smashing, grabbing when stores are open. You have people that are going in specific stores and stealing because they have a list. And small businesses are having a really hard time. I've lived in the South End for 40 years. I have 24 years of working in Businesses. I was 17 years on Washington Gateway Main Street Board. I was the first board president for 10 years. I was on the Washington South End Business Alliance for seven years as a volunteer. And a lot of my job was really teaching people about retail. A lot of small businesses, unfortunately, open up their businesses on their credit cards. They don't really understand what it is to open up businesses. Yes, we have 20 main street districts in the city, but there's a lot of our cities, a lot of our neighborhoods that don't have main streets. Bottom line is, every time somebody loses something, it hurts their bottom line. Staff-wise, a lot of these businesses are only 500 to 1,000 square feet or 250 square feet. Frankly, having extra people in a store that actually work for you helps, but as Councilor Murphy said, Which I agree, they're not paid a lot. They have to be careful. My son was in retail for 10 years. He worked at a Walgreens. Many times he'd see people shoplifting. A couple times he ran after them. And of course, when he got home, I was really upset with him on that. But in the South End Walgreens, for instance, I knew the people. I worked at the BRA for 16 and a half years. I was very involved for the Business Improvement District happening in Downtown Crossing getting started. would work quite often with merchants that had empty storefronts putting pop-up businesses, but going in and actually explaining to these businesses and these artists how to actually run a business was really hard for them to understand. But back in that time, we actually had a retail person on staff at the BRA that focused on retail, that worked actually with businesses on retail, worked on these specific facts outside the Main Street districts. And that's not happening any longer today. Merchants, most of the time, don't call the police. Why? because when I talk to them, and I get phone calls all the time, having lived in the neighborhood for a long time, my phone rings anywhere from eight o'clock in the morning to 10 o'clock at night. Randy, this is what happened, what do I do? Randy, who do I call? and I'm always trying to be helpful telling people who to call. And why don't they call? Because what they say is the police don't have any power. They come in, they might arrest them, they might not arrest them, or the police are doing something very Priority, it takes them an hour to get there, or we all know at the end of the day, the courts let them go. They think shoplifting is not a big deal, but it is a big deal. It starts with the kid going into the corner store, a trying to grab some candy bars. And before you know it, that person continues to say, this is a good deal. Now, one thing Councilor Flynn talked about, which I really appreciated him asking me to speak today, was on Chinatown. In the South End, Every business has been hurt. Is it from Mass and Cass? Yes. Mass and Cass has been going on for 10 years. When a shelter was built over on South Hampton Street, a 400-bed shelter for men, that really put a lot of pressure on Mass and Cass in the South End. But it's not just the South End. It's Newmarket. It's Roxbury. It's Downtown Crossing. It's Roslindale. It's everywhere. We live on Saint-Petoff right behind the colony. Quite often I see people coming in, professional shoplifters coming in and going through boxes and bags of things that they just stole from the Prudential Mall or Copley Place. If I'm getting in my car, I usually get on 911 and tell people. Or when we go out to pull trash, I see empty boxes and empty bags. That's outrageous. that that's what's going on. It's a professional. You go over to Copley Place, you can't go into most of the stores. They all have stanchions and security. You go into CVS, if you ask to see that shampoo, they usually walk you over to the register to pay for that shampoo. The Walgreens on Washington Street in the South End was so bad, they closed it. and I talked to corporate in Chicago and you know what they said? That was the worst Walgreens of all of New England on shoplifting. That's why they closed it. CVS, CVS near Boston City Hospital, They closed. Why? Because customers and employees were getting threatened by needles. People were coming in during the day and saying, give me your purse, give me your wallet, or I'm going to stick you with a needle and it has fentanyl. This is what's happening out there, folks. And I'm going to not mention any of the small businesses that I know that it's happening in Downtown Crossing or it's happening in the neighborhoods because I don't want to hurt those businesses. But it's happening more than people realize. My son used to work in the downtown crossing area. He's been brought up here. He was six years old when he moved here. He's now 46. He won't go to some of these neighborhoods because he's so aware of what's going on. And that's a sad scenario. And what I read on the internet, When Councilor Flynn placed it on Facebook about this hearing today, someone said, why should I go to CVS and Walgreens because everything's locked up? By the time I get it to the register, it's easier for me to go on Amazon and buy that shampoo. So once again, we're hurting our bricks and mortar. There is ways that we can deter shoplifting, and that's what I want to talk about. Grocery stores unfortunately only work on 3% margin, which people don't realize. So what do they steal? The beer, the wine, the meats, the prepared foods, the salmon, all the things that are packaged. Because why? That's resellable. There is a supermarket, and I won't tell you where it is, They have stopped people with shopping carts full of food, beer, wine. They had full-time security. Do you know how much that costs, a small grocery store, independent grocery store? Then they found out in the end that security guard ended up working with the shoplifters. They go out there and they're saying, come on, guy, give it back to me. I'm not going to give it back to you because guess what? I got a gun or I got a knife or I got a needle. So they run back in and call 911. That's what's going on out there. You talk to the small convenience stores, that's what's going out out there. So I'm here today to talk about solutions and I know Worrell, and Councilor Flynn, and Councilor Murphy, I appreciate you being here and having this hearing today. I can tell you what I think should happen. I think a lot of these big retailers should be mentoring our small neighborhoods. They're the ones that have these big profit and loss teams. They're the ones, like one of the detectives talked about, Target. Let them work with our neighborhoods. Let them mentor our retailers. Let them tell us how to do it. I tell merchants all the time, go to Area D, have the community service officer walk through your business and tell you what's right and what's wrong. That's what needs to happen. A lot of our businesses don't even realize at the end of the day they should leave a light on after they close. They don't realize that they should have their number on their door so if it gets broken into. And these are the things that I used to voluntarily run workshops when I was with Washington Gateway, Main Street, and also SEBA. And I'm talking about well-known chefs, well-known business owners that you think are doing really well, do not know the rules of retail. Another thing can happen. The city of Boston used to have a grant program on replacement windows. There is some glass out there that you can put on your storefront that if it's smashed, it shatters. It doesn't break. I'm talking about a sledgehammer. The city of Boston, through CBG grants, used to give out grants for that. I don't think that's happening anymore. That needs to happen. Security systems. A lot of our mom and pop convenience stores have security systems. More of our businesses need security systems. Security systems can go on during business hours, security systems that can go on in the evening. That can come from CBG grants. Those are what our small businesses have because when a shoplifter comes in and starts seeing security, they say, oh my goodness, this place is being watched. And the merchant can look on their phone what's going on. They can be in their office and know what's going on. That needs to happen. They also need to have security cameras outside so they can actually look. So when the police officer says, do you have a photograph? Do you have a video of that? Sure we do, we have it on tape. That helps a lot. I also think walking the beat, and I think, Council Flynn, you talked about it. When I was on Newbury Street, and that was probably in all the 90s, we used to have people come up and down the street, walk in, get to know the merchants. Back then before cell phones, if I used to have something shoplifted, like, Some clothing, I would call the merchant next door who had called the merchant next door. We had our own what they called phone chains. Now that can't work today because we don't have landlines, but something like that can easily happen. So you take, that merchant takes upon themselves to tell them. And I wouldn't do it through social media because those shoplifters, those crooks are watching social media. Let's be honest about it. It's such an underground thing going on. They're coming in and stealing a lot. A big thing people don't know, but in the Boston Zoning Code, since I worked at the BRA, I was in planning, zoning, and urban design for 60 and a half years. There's a thing in the Boston Zoning Code that says no merchant should close more than 50% of their windows. You go around to merchants, it's all advertising. You go to these bodegas, they're closing them up. They don't know better. You go in and the Coca-Cola guy comes in and says, hey, can I put my advertising on your windows? And they put it on. And they say, great, I can get some money for that. But what they don't realize is that business is suddenly dangerous because no one can see what's going on in that business during operation hours and after operation hours. The City of Boston's Planning Department, which is really the BRA, should be implementing that. That is in the zoning code. The businesses should be not closing more than 50% of their windows. That way they can actually see in there and help those merchants because somebody walking by could suddenly see something's going on or during the night time when people are closed something's going on and that's extremely important. You know, a lot of things are going on on theft. We know that. You look at Facebook Marketplace. Between people stealing packages, which to me is also shoplifting if you want to talk about it, off people's steps. They're selling it on Facebook Marketplace. They're selling it on their Facebook page. There is a professional underground thing going on out there. During some of the uncomfortable times we had in Boston, and Copley Place. I think Neiman Marcus got hit. They had professionals going in and stealing all the handbags. And they found out that people within Neiman Marcus, the employees, had given the keys to the people that came in and actually stole them. So sometimes shoplifting is also done from the employees, unfortunately, that are working for the merchant. But bottom line is, our small businesses are hurting. With the internet, we all know is really hard. With what's going on in Facebook Marketplace is really hard. But there's things that the city of Boston can do. I really believe that through CBG grants and maybe Finn, you're much more aware of it than I am, but through grants that are going on having to do with security issues, we can help our merchants. You know, the big guys like the Macy's, the Walgreens, the CVS, You know what? They come and go. We know that. But I believe in big box retail because I think it's important to have some of those there. But our small ones, they're hurting. It's hard enough that people come in and barcode that shirt and they go on the internet and they can get it $5 cheaper because we know that's what's going on today. Or people have sophisticated systems where they put on that clamp with the ink thing so if it comes off, It suddenly comes off. But people come in and grab a whole rack of clothing. But when I was in that time, I used to say to my Staff changed the hooks every other, every other, every other, so they couldn't grab it and pull it off. So there's simple, simple things. And I heard the two gentlemen here before, and I think they were talking more statistic-wise, which I think is important. But there's really simple things out there that can be done today. I think our main streets, number one, that should be a priority for all of the 20 main streets need to be trained on this. I think that there's a lot of neighborhoods that are not Main Street districts, like the South End does not have a Main Street district. They have a volunteer group called the South End Business Alliance, which I was on for seven years. And I know South Boston doesn't have a Main Street, but they have chambers and different things. More and more education needs to happen from City Hall and it should be coming from the Office of Economic Development. That needs to happen. We as a city need to educate and protect our small businesses because there is Simple ways to help them that don't cost money, but there's other ways of helping them through security systems and mentorship and all these other things that in the end will really help our business community.

Thank you. And I agree with that statement for sure. One of the hearing orders I've put forward I think it was this year or last year, was making sure that small business owners went through a business 101. We do it already. MAHA, if you're buying a home, and it's when you think about it it's like the same level of investment that someone is putting inside of their business right sometimes it could be your life savings that you're putting inside your business and you're up all night working 24-7 in that business. And I believe that there needs to be, to your point, more education to our business owners on a wide variety of things, right? Whether it's theft, security, but also just accounting and other things that can impact You know, your investment in a major way. So we're hoping to have that business 101 stood up from the administration because also when The administration is awarding grants or programs. We want to make sure that those businesses that are getting it, they have this level of education and knowledge so that they are around for the next 20, 30, 50 years. But with that, I'll pass it off to the lead sponsor for first round of questions. Councilor Flynn, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and also want to acknowledge the Chair and Councilor Murphy. Both of you have done a lot of work on Working with Main Streets across the city, supporting them and advocating for them. So I just want to acknowledge Brian and Erin for the work you've done on supporting Main Streets. Thank you Randy for being here, for your testimony, for the important work you provide in the Back Bay and the South End neighborhoods. So Randy, I know I know because of Mass and Cass, and I represent about two-thirds of the South End, and I know the area well and all the challenges we've had. I know you mentioned Walgreens on Washington Street was closed, maybe had the highest theft in New England. But my question, Randy, what impact would that particularly have on Another business near it, whether it's a mom and pop shop or another small business, but does it also have an impact on Their business having a major national company like Walgreens closing, does it also impact the business climate or the business community?

That's a good question, Councilor. Fatwall Greens was below the Southend Community Health Center, which is a nonprofit health center, which I think is really now part of the East Boston Health Center. They opened there because of the South End Community Health Center. I was actually a community activist before I worked at the BRA. I was very instrumental that the South End Community Health Center went to that spot. And unfortunately, it's too bad the South End Community Health Center ended up not running the pharmacy, but the developer tried to get CVS. They didn't like the neighborhood at the South End. You have to remember that was in late 1990s. It was a different place. My husband and I moved there in 1986. What that Walgreens did was they had a huge flow of seniors. Rich or poor, I don't care who you are, going there for their daily needs for pharmacy. But also people did use it to go in because there was a section for food. You know, it was a major attractor of street traffic, you know, because they were open a lot. They were open at 8 o'clock, 7 o'clock, I think, in the morning until 10, until midnight. So at least that created eyes and ears on the street. It also created jobs, huge amount of jobs. A lot of young people in high school, young people that ended up not going on to college start at Walgreens. I know some people that started there literally work in the register and work themselves up to be an assistant manager. That got lost in the South End. The next closest CVS is over on Columbus Ave. toward Back Bay, or down in the Ink Block area. So that was a huge loss, and we've seen that throughout Roxbury, Walgreens is closed for lots of reasons, and I'm only speaking what I know about the South End. Same thing happened to CVS. over behind Boston Medical Center, that area, that closed because of theft and safety. When customers are afraid to go in and shop and afraid they're going to get pricked by a needle by one of these folks, that's scary. There's no way I'd walk in there. So it's a good question. You know, not having a major retailer like that is a loss for the neighborhood. You know, I always say every retail district should have national and all small businesses. It can't survive just on small businesses. You need to have some national brands. National brands also don't take chances. They go purely on demographics. They figure out, can this neighborhood support this? So it's very important to have that. I'm not going to mention it, but we have a local grocery store in the South Bend. They have a binder that is four inches thick of just shoplifting that's happened in over 10 years. And when I said to the owner of the company, why don't you call? He said, why? One, unfortunately the police officer takes the law to them. Two, the person is gone by that point. Three, they don't get prosecuted. Why bother? And they actually had to have a security guard. And most of the time it worked, but sometimes it didn't. They're so good at what they do, they get up every morning wanting to shoplift. Back in the days as we had people come in with these expanded Clothes where they could stuff stuff down in and then throw a shirt over. It's not just coming in with a bag. These people know that there's actually clothes out there to do shoplifting. I know cafes on Tremont Street and Chaminade. They're coming in and taking bottled barbecue sauce or bottled salsa sauce off the counters, clearing the shelves. Is that employee going to stop them? No. And what are they doing? Just like you said, they're probably selling it. This is happening over and over and over. But I think we have to really start with making sure that one, their windows are secure so they don't have to be smashed, their back door doesn't have to be smashed, We have to give our merchants the ability to put in security systems. Because when somebody comes in and knows they're on security, it's a different thing. Back then in the 90s, I used to have big mirrors I think in some cases those work too. But you can't have so many employees in a small place. Then you feel uncomfortable going in. So it's a really touch, you know, it's a difficult thing. People want to touch it. When you wanna buy that shampoo, you wanna look at the ingredients. I'm a type two diabetic. I look at all the ingredients. But when I say can I see that, and the person actually, it's over at the pro. They actually take that item, over to the register. I said, can I look at it? Well, you can look at it. So here I am standing in the aisle trying to look at it, trying to decide. And I've seen that store many times, see Boston Police in there, because it's smash and grab. They go in during the day and just grab stuff. How does that make me feel as a 40-year resident? Scary.

Right. I just received a text. I was highlighting the challenges in Chinatown about stealing food and selling food. And a friend of mine texted me and he said, well, It's also happening in the south end as well, and it is happening. I should have mentioned that. I failed to mention that. Let me follow up one final question. Is that okay, Mr. Chair? Yes.

And one thing, Councilor, I'm not going to mention it, but I had one of the merchants in the South End that does appointment only.

Okay.

and they had $8,000 worth of jewelry stolen last week.

Jewelry?

Jewelry. Professionals coming in, turned around, they have like a lot of employees, sold $8,000 worth of jewelry from them.

And maybe I should have asked this to Ryan as well, but let me ask you anyway, Randy. Is there a point that, at a certain point, like Walgreens said, But is there a certain point that after a certain limit of stealing, the business must have to say, if they have investors, I would assume, that we just can't sustain this any longer. and it's not feasible for us economically to continue operating as sewer even though we provide a positive service to the residents of the neighborhood but it's just not It's not possible anymore to keep the store open based on stealing, but is there a certain number that would go out of business based on The amount of stealing that's taking place, I know it probably depends on business to business.

I think it's business for business. Most businesses, if I'm talking retail, are on Keystone. You buy for 50, you sell it for 100. You used to be able to build in shipping and packing and sell for maybe $110, but the way you go on the internet today, the internet is always beating everybody in price, so they're losing that too. We've lost businesses in the South End. A lot of businesses, unfortunately, and a lot of entrepreneurs open up small businesses. They do it from family and friends, and they actually run them on their credit cards, which I always tell them, that's the worst thing you can do. Don't give up your house. There's ways of going to the city and having them help that. They're unaware of those things too, by the way. Boston Loan Development Corporation, which is under the BRA, has money for fixtures. That money should go toward small businesses putting in fixtures that are actually Shoplifting proof. Because I'll tell you what happens. That person comes in. They don't shoplift that day. They come in and they look at that business. And they come back the next day or a week later. They figure out, and I think, Councilor Worrell, you talked about it. They figure out what is the weakness of this business, right? When I had my business, it was actually right next to the Bostonian Hotel. We had two doors. We used to lock our second door at 5 o'clock at night because we were open until 10 o'clock every night because they used to run out the second door. And, you know, of course it was a turnkey. It wasn't a deadbolt. But we'd had to do that because we had so many people coming in at night. The minute it was dark, they would come in. And they'd actually wave at us. when they would steal something. And they'd hold that jewelry box that was worth $250. That's happening out there. People are shopping to shoplift. And that's what's hard. And I think you talked about a counselor too, three counselors. Business owners sometimes spend more time in their business than they do in their own home. When somebody says, well, they don't live there, I go, Well, actually, they practically live in their business. You know, they're opening up early in the morning, cleaning the toilet, making sure the windows are clean, open up the doors, staying open at night, trying to stay, you know, cashing out at night, refilling it, doing displays. It's not a nine to five business. And small businesses really holds the glue of the neighborhood. As they always say, investing 67% of the dollar comes back to the neighborhood, and it does. If we don't get hold of this, we're in a serious problem. When I heard today that up to $1,200 you can do without prosecution is outrageous. That could wipe a business out. It could really wipe a bit. You have too many of those, forget it. And I can't even tell you how much rents are. But I know merchants in the South End and a lot of the property owners, They're doing fair rates. I mean, Newbury Street, Downtown Crossing starts at $100 to $300 a square foot, depending on who it is. South End, $45 a square foot up to $75 a square foot. or sometimes they do a percentage of business. It's hard out there to make it today. But even look at the bodegas. I know there was a bodega, Don Quixote, the family ended up, it was the oldest bodega in the South, and they ended up retiring and selling it. They had an incredible, Security cameras, big screen TV, And that really helped. Right behind the register. I had all the quadrants. So when Freddy LeBlanco was on his office, he could look on his phone and see it all day long. He could look on it when he was home. That helps. We have to give tools to our small businesses. BLDC's money should be going to fixtures. Because you have a business in Upham's Corner, Dorchester, Rosendale, they're buying Sometimes fixtures, secondhand stores. But if you look at them, it's not stopping that shoplifter because they know how to get into it. I mean, one of the worst cases I had on Newbury Street, I used to say to my staff, I had a case where all the gold jewelry was, do not leave that case at all. Somebody came in, bought a card, said, I gotta go, gotta go. That person rang in the card. By the time they got back, the entire gold case was wiped out. And the store was packed. It was the Christmas season. And the person that did it was a mink coat. It's a professional. So you have all different people out there doing it. But a lot of the people that are doing the smash and grab, that's a professional underground stuff going on out there. They're selling stuff out there. I'm not talking about taking the, we're not talking about The milk that the mother can't pay for. I understand that. I mean, Freddy Leblanco used to give free food out to people because he said, if someone comes in and they can't feed their family, I'll give them free food. I'm not talking about those folks. I'm talking about what's going on today. and Shoplifting. So it has to start at the state. The city has to take the lead on this. And the city has resources. And we need to put those resources in helping our small businesses. Councilor Murphy, you're out there all the time as an at-large city council. You probably hear this. It's not just our retailers hearing this, right? It's our cafes, it's our groceries, it's our bodegas. They're all being affected. And look at Chinatown. Those folks work seven days a week. Most of the retailers are open seven days a week, by the way. I spent more time in my 20 years in my business, unfortunately my husband will tell you, than I did at home. And that's what happens. But you know what? Plus with the internet today going on, anybody can go on the internet and find it a little bit cheaper. Now me, I'll do anything I can not to go on Amazon and on the internet because I don't care paying $5 or $10 more for the items. because we need to support our small businesses. But we've got to give them the tools. And I don't think that actually our businesses in our Main Street districts are really being educated about this. And when I mean educated, they need to bring in professionals from the outside that know this. Because I don't, having been in retail for so long in my life, I know this like the back of my hand, but most people don't know this, unless you've actually walked the walk. And it's just, it's a very sad affair what's going on. Mastin Cass absolutely has affected it, but it's been going on for a long time. And it's not just affecting South Bend, it's Roxbury, it's Downtown Crossing, it's Chinatown, it's Roslindale, it's Dorchester, it's everywhere. But I think we have the tools in the city to at least start this in the right direction.

Well, thank you, Randy, and thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving me a couple extra minutes. Thank you. The chair recognizes Councilor Murphy.

Councilor, you have the floor.

Thank you. You were talking about the tools that our small businesses need. And when I'm at these different Breakfast that communities will have with small businesses or walkthroughs. What I'm hearing them say is they want more Collaboration and they're helping each other on like social media and foot traffic and marketing issues and although some and many are struggling with theft that like you just said it's That is a professional, like they don't have those skills and I don't really think that they should, right? Like we do. It's kind of a rhetorical question so it's not that you need to answer this but I know you've been speaking about it that and you know the first panel did touch on the work that the police are doing but how do we get The relationships there where these small businesses know that your partnership with the Boston Police has to be stronger if needed because we can't expect business owners to be chefs and detectives. No, like you can't be. A crafter and a police officer, like you are pouring your heart and soul into your small business. And it was mentioned, you know, these bigger retails like Target and CVS and even they're closing, right? The Walgreens across the city are just shutting down because of theft. And they have enough money to kind of hold on much longer than a small business does. And then you also talked about the resources that our small business offices do provide, which are great. And I know we've had hearings on it. I had a hearing on Main Streets and the support that they get but oftentimes we do hear that you know there's red tape that they may have put in for the grant to get a new sign but a year later they're still you know trying to get that through so I think us on the council definitely need to work closer with those different small businesses to help because oftentimes they do say like most government and many more. Shoppers. But just thank you for your insight. And you've been out there in the neighborhoods and you see firsthand. So I think it's important that we continue to advocate for the resources. and not to expect different departments. Like I said in my opening statement, it's gonna take maybe all of the departments in the city, right? We all have to step up and support, but how do we end up making sure that Our small businesses cannot just stay alive but thrive for themselves and for our residents.

And that's a thank you, Councilor Murphy. I mean, public announcements. You look at all the street furniture that Decoe has on the street furniture. How about putting up some public announcements so business owners can see that you can have a police officer come in and actually examine your business. The last thing I want to do is see roll-down grates come back to businesses. That was the worst thing that ever happened because literally it says, hello, I'm shut for business. When people roll down that solid grade at night, guess what? That business is probably being broken into from the back door and they're just having a free-for-all. And that's actually in the zoning codes. You can't have solid rolled down grades, by the way. You can have see-through. There was a business in the South then called Moore's Fish that recently, he retired many years ago, and he always rolled down his grades. closed at five o'clock, went home. He lived in the burbs. And through Washington Gateway, myself and Sheila Grove went in there and we said, hey, let's do an experiment. Why don't you just leave your grades up? Within a month, his business doubled 100%. People were coming by saying, when did you open? He said, I've been open for 50 years. I'm not kidding you. But it gave a presence of this shutdown. And we convinced him to eventually take them off. What I don't want to see merchants do is go back to the roll-down grades. because it says, hello, our neighborhood is closed for business. There is other ways of doing it. It's having the community officer come in or having a whole, I think actually out of Boston Police, they should have a retail team that goes in and actually can go around and talk to small businesses. I think this mentorship is a great idea where you can have the Targets or the Macy's go around and help the businesses. A lot of those big businesses like the Macy's I know when I had the Society of Arts and Crafts, Saks Fifth Avenue was redoing their store and they gave us all new cases that they had for free. They were otherwise, they were just throwing them out. That should be a mentorship with a small business because those cases, believe me, are secure. So I think there's things that don't cost us any much, but I think there's resources I think workshops need to happen, but you gotta get somebody, you gotta get these neighborhood coordinators going neighborhood by neighborhood, business by business, because a lot of those businesses are so busy, and you know this, councilors, They're having a hard enough time watching their business, making sure everything looks good, everything's stocked, then taking the time to suddenly talk to somebody. We've got to do more for our small businesses. Otherwise, our businesses are going to... You're going to have just basically a sea of fitness stores, which is happening now. Retail is having a really hard time out there. Let's be honest about it. Restaurants are having a hard time because of COVID. People say, oh, they're doing so well. Ask them about it in the wintertime when they can't do outdoor dining. Food costs are up crazy. But our bodegas, they can't keep up with the stop and shops of the world. They buy everything by bulk. That's what's really tough out there. You know, the stops and shops and the Whole Foods, they buy such huge bulk. But that's not, you know, you go to a bodega, they're getting stuff out of somebody's back, you know, private car. They're buying that bakery item from somebody from another neighborhood. Those are the businesses we need to save. And it's not just Newbury Street. I mean, Newbury Street is high-end, but you know what? You walk down Newbury Street, there's a lot of family-owned businesses down there. There's a lot of minority-owned businesses down there. It's not just the Giorgi Amani down there. We have to really critically think about that. Same thing in Downtown Crossing. We have to think about this as a whole. We're going to be in serious trouble. And we're Boston. We should be leading the state. We're the economic engine of the state. And we need to figure this out. We need to be partners with the statehouse. But we have to show leadership.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Murphy. Second round. Thank you again Randy for your testimony and also your commitment and your service to the City of Boston particularly around small businesses and as a small business owner myself and knowing so many other small business owners I know exactly you know what you're talking about and sometimes you get you wear so many hats and the one hat that you often forget sometimes is you know the safety all right because you're so focused on making ends meet paying your employees and getting the stock in that you know the last thing you're worried about is someone breaking into and many more. Thank you again for your time and your service and your passion around small businesses. Now we'll go to public testimony. When your name is called, please come down to one of the two podiums. State your name, neighborhood, and organization affiliation. Please speak into the microphone, and please keep your comments to two minutes. We'll start with in-person at first, and then we have one person on Zoom. So while the in-person is testifying, we'll get the Zoom powered up. Mike Nichols.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Michael Nichols. I'm the president of the Downtown Boston Alliance. We represent the commercial property owners of Downtown Crossing and the Financial District, along with the nearly 500 retail storefronts within our district. I want to echo, but in the interest of time, not repeat the earlier panelists about the importance of this issue, the impact that it has on the retail environment in downtown. In particular, I want to thank Councilor Flynn for calling attention to this issue. Certainly, as the earlier panelists detailed, this issue has a pronounced impact on both the perception and the economic success of downtown. Thank you also to the chairman. and Councilor Murphy for being here and your clear interest in the issue. Given that this issue is coming up now in 2025, I want to give a little bit of thinking about where we are. It is a dramatically better business climate downtown than it was at this time about a year ago. And I think as a member of the Safe Shopping Initiative, I think it's been clear that that work has paid off. Downtown Crossing and our entire service area has our lowest level of retail vacancy that we've had since prior to the pandemic. We had something like 110 vacant storefronts Three years ago, we're down to something like 60, 65 vacant storefronts today. Retailers are having more confidence in being in our downtown than they did before. You may have just recently seen the news that two of the largest retailers in the country, including one, Uniqlo, have taken over two of the largest vacant storefronts in our downtown, including the one that was The largest vacant for the longest and perhaps the most high profile vacancy in our city in the former Barnes and Nobles on Washington Street. So the trend lines are good. Foot traffic is up. We believe that the Safe Shopping Initiative has made a major impact in downtown, but I'm also not here to say that there is no problem, that we can't be doing better, and so I appreciate the focus on this issue, appreciate the work of the council and the Safe Shopping Initiative. and in particular our partners at the Boston Police Department for the focus that they have had on this issue. We believe it is as good a time as it's been in quite some time to conduct business in the downtown environment. We encourage more retailers to do it and believe that they can have confidence in the relationship with us and the police and others on this issue.

Now we'll move to Zoom. Brian McCarter, the floor is now yours.

Thank you, Councillors, for giving me the opportunity to speak today. I am a resident in the South End. I wanted to testify since I'm not a business owner, but I've seen the impact on the community for the shoplifting has had. I live nearby one of the CVSs that closed despite having private security cameras and you know extensive connections with law enforcement and they still had a very large That shoplifting often ended up being coming, you know, goods get traded for drugs on the sidewalks around the greater mass and caste area. and so you know it fueled the help fuel the drug crisis around here so it's it's not shoplifting in a vacuum it's often you know often fueling drug addiction so Unfortunately, a lot of the people that do handle with stolen goods, they try to hide under the cover of some of the service providers around here. So there might be trading of food from various providers on the sidewalk, but you'll start seeing drugs and other stolen items getting traded. It kind of obfuscates the problem a little bit around here and it's harder to tell what's going on for police trying to address it. The impact of the community has been that we've lost and so on. As other hearings have had issues with the delivery drivers in Boston, it creates its own issues. If delivery is the only viable option, you start having cars double parked and bikes causing issues. So yeah, as a resident here, residents would really like this address so that there are places we can shop and it's not further fueling the opioid crisis. I'll submit some comments in writing, but that is the crux of my testimony today.

Again, thank you to everyone that came out from the public to give testimony. Now I'll turn it over to my council colleagues for any closing statements, starting with the lead sponsor.

Thank you Mr. Chair for chairing this important hearing for bringing us together to Councilor Murphy for the important work you have done in our neighborhoods on supporting small businesses and yourself Mr. Chair supporting Small businesses supporting their employees and in quality of life and public safety. Also, I want to say thank you to Superintendent McLaughlin and Ryan Kearney from the Retailers Association of Massachusetts for being here, for the work you are doing. But this partnership that we worked on and developed and built up from the bottom, I think it could be a model for other cities or it could be and expanded throughout the city as well to ensure that other people know about it. But what's important is we work together. We support the police department. We support our business owners. Many of them, as Randy has mentioned, they work seven days a week. Sometimes they work 14, 15 hours a day for a profit margin that is very thin and narrow. and stealing some items could be the difference between a profit or a loss. But what I want us to do is to leave this hearing committed to developing these partnerships between businesses in the Boston Police and the community. It's about working together, respecting each other, supporting each other in knowing that a small business plays a critical role in our neighborhoods, and I'm here to continue that work and to continue to support our residents, obviously, our police officers, and our small businesses, including the Retailers Association of Massachusetts The important work you play, not just in Boston, but across the Commonwealth as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilor Murphy. Councilor, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilor Flynn, for filing this. I think it's always important that we come together and talk about ways to support our small businesses. They provide goods and services, but as important, they're a major employer. many of our residents are work at these small businesses across the city so we have to make sure that we're supporting them that they stay open and we'll continue to be allies to those who are already doing the work of making sure that they're successful. So thank you for having this hearing.

Thank you. Again, I just want to thank the panelists. I want to thank my council colleagues for all their great questions and for bringing this hearing order forward. I also want to thank the city on working towards bringing all the stakeholders together to come up with solutions. As we have heard from public testimony, the panelists, and residents, is that the trend lines are moving in the right direction. And that is what happens when we all work together after identifying I am very encouraged by the future work of not only this council that not only invest in our police department but invest in our small businesses to make this city the great city that it is. So with that said, this hearing on docket number 1633 is adjourned.