Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas was joined by state legislators, CalChamber President and CEO Jennifer Barrera, and California Retailers Association President and CEO Rachel Michelin this week as he unveiled a package of bipartisan legislation to target retail theft.
At the April 9 press conference, Barrera commended the bipartisan effort, remarking that the proposals will give law enforcement the tools they need to address retail crime in a swift and effective manner.
“We know that this retail theft and organized retail crime is impacting our communities, it is hurting our small businesses, it is hurting our brick-and-mortar stores that are having to create new security measures that are costly and also change the customer experience,” she said. “We know that our customers are feeling unsafe, whether they witness the crimes in person or whether they are seeing them on TV, it does create a level of safety concerns for our customers, and we need to change that direction.”
Bills Targeting Retail Crime
The bills in the package supported by the CalChamber include the following. All passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee on April 9.
• AB 1779 (Irwin; D-Thousand Oaks): Clarifies that acts of retail theft occurring across multiple jurisdictions can be charged in a single jurisdiction.
• AB 1802 (Jones-Sawyer; D-South Los Angeles): Removes sunset date from organized retail crime statute, keeping it in place indefinitely.
• AB 1960 (Soria; D-Fresno): Reinstates sentencing enhancements for taking, damaging, or destroying of property during the commission of a felony.
• AB 2943 (R. Rivas, D-Salinas; Zbur, D-Hollywood): Creates new crimes for professional retail thieves and gives law enforcement more tools to combat career thieves.
• AB 3209 (Berman; D-Palo Alto): Creates a new retail theft restraining order that allows a court to prohibit a convicted retail thief from entering a retail location or parking lot.
The provisions of some of these bills are still being worked on, and the CalChamber looks forward to developing them further with the bills’ authors as we seek to advance all possible solutions.
