IGA owners restricts kids under 16 from entering three Geraldton stores amid increased theft

The owners of Geraldton’s chain of IGA stores say they have been left with no choice but to restrict entry to unsupervised children after 6pm in a bid to combat rising shoplifting and staff abuse. Children under 16 without an adult may be asked to leave or refused entry to the Rigters, Queens and Wonthella IGA stores, in the hope the drastic measure will reduce the worsening trend of petty theft and threats towards staff. General manager Kyme Rigter said each week staff across three stores were confronted with 25-35 cases of shoplifting when a culprit was caught, or “half a dozen times a day” across the sites. He said the decision to refuse service to youth was appropriate as some children that age shouldn’t be without supervision in the evening, but the decision would be up to the store manager’s discretion at the time of entry. “We understand that mum and dad might be coming home after sport, for bread milk or whatever, and their school-aged children might come in — management will need to make that assessment,” Mr Rigter said. Unsupervised children have previously been restricted from the stores during school hours. This move comes after a Perth Hungry Jack’s outlet sparked controversy when it decided to stop serving youth under 17 without parental supervision after a recent spate of violence from teenagers. As the behaviour of juvenile shoplifters become more hostile and senseless, Mr Rigter said he needed to take action, particularly when it came to big groups of youths entering the chain’s supermarkets and bottle shops. “We have met several times now with Lara Dalton to voice our concerns and see what initiatives can be done to start curbing this increasing pattern,” he said. “We have suggested an easier incident reporting system as we believe like us, other retailers in town are not reporting the actual number of incidents, which in turn is not a true reflection of the current environment. We have also suggested a local retailers forum at which retailers, police and local government are present.” Mr Rigter said staff members would monitor the entrance and report suspicious activity to management who would escort the under 16s out. Operations manager Stuart Bain said during stocktake, $150,000 of missing products would be attributed to theft between supermarkets in one year, including Cellarbrations stores. The Geraldton Guardian viewed pages of CCTV images of shoplifters collected over just a few weeks from the stores’ security cameras. Mr Bain said juveniles who began stealing one chocolate bar would down the track be walking out with a whole box. “There’s some kids that we’re familiar with and the attitude they gave us as a 10-year-old to the attitude as a 12-year-old, before you could approach them and they’d give it back — they might think it’s a bit of a laugh but they’d be a bit sheepish about it,” he said. “There’s some kids that we’re familiar with and the attitude they gave us as a 10-year-old to the attitude as a 12-year-old, before you could approach them and they’d give it back — they might think it’s a bit of a laugh but they’d be a bit sheepish about it,” he said. “Now they’re telling us to ‘f... off’, you can’t touch me’ and then on the way out grabbing drinks to leg it out the store or damaging property.” Mr Bain believed the community would be understanding of the measures as they were most likely frustrated about the antisocial behaviour happening in their own backyard. “I think the majority of people will be pretty supportive of it if it’s going to also make their shopping experience a bit better without having this sort of stuff going on,” he said. In Geraldton on Sunday, Premier Mark McGowan said he sympathised with businesses in this position. “It’s up to individual businesses what they wish to do and if that’s what they see as required, well then I support them in doing what they need to do protect themselves and their staff,” he said. “Staff should be able to go to work without fear of being assaulted or attacked and people should be able to run businesses without people stealing from them.”