Petty theft costing Limerick business ‘thousands of euro’

The owner of several shops in Limerick city has said that petty theft has cost his business thousands of euro.

Shane Gleeson, who runs five Spar shops in the city, said that the items stolen most often are soft drinks, sweets and yogurt drinks, as people usually drop these items into their pockets.

Mr Gleeson added that people often come up to the till and pay for one or two items, and either hide other items on their person or consume them without paying for them.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne programme, he said: “It can be difficult to catch people doing that as they are quite skilled at this, however, you have to try avoid accusing someone of doing something wrong. Generally you try and establish a plan to catch them the next day,” he added.

Mr Gleeson explained that his shops have recently installed a record system where a deli item is now linked to the tills, and it gets knocked off when it is paid for, so they know exactly who has not paid for their item.

However, he is also considering adding tills at the deli counter to further curb the problem.

He said: “The problem has just gone too large to ignore it, so we have to do something.”

Speaking of those who commit petty theft in his shops, Mr Gleeson said: “They can be very aggressive when we try and stop them.

“We’ve had several people who try and come in eight or nine times a day and are kicked out eight or nine times a day, who just try and rob and steal every day,” he added.

Mr Gleeson said: “Those people don’t hide their identities, they don’t care… the system would describe them as petty criminals but it doesn’t feels like that to us.”

Mr Gleeson said that in his experience, those who perpetrate these crimes are not seeing significant consequences for the level of theft.

He said that the thieves are arrested, charged and brought before the courts, but there tends to be a lack of suitable space in prisons.