California Senate passes bill to stop employees from confronting shoplifters

The California Senate has passed a bill that would establish new workplace violence prevention standards in California. Not everyone is happy about it.

The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 553, now progresses to policy committees in the State Assembly. Among other things, it would prohibit employers from “maintaining policies that require employees to confront active shooters or suspected shoplifters.” It also would require all non-healthcare employers to provide active shooter training to workers.

The bill comes as retail crime is on the upswing, with several retailers, including Target, blaming theft, particularly organized retail crime, as eating into their profits. It also comes amid rising theft-related violence. In April, a 26-year-old Home Depot security guard, Blake Mohs, was shot to death while trying to stop a theft in progress inside the company’s store in Pleasanton, Calif.

“With growing awareness of workplace violence, California needs smarter guidelines to keep workers safe in the office or on the job site,”said Senator Cortese (D-San Jose). “Under my SB 553, employers would be prohibited from forcing their workers to confront active shoplifters, and all retail employees would be trained on how to react to active shoplifting. The legislation has other provisions that keep people safe at work. Let’s take every reasonable step to prevent another workplace assault or shooting.”

How about arresting shoplifters? Anyone? Anyone?


 

NYC’s drug-themed vending machine cleaned out of crack pipes overnight: ‘They should re-stock’

City officials’ new drug-themed vending machine is a huge hit with local addicts — who wasted no time cleaning it out overnight as they stocked up on its free crack pipes, lip balm and Narcan.

“Yes, I love it,” drug user Evelyn Williams told The Post while standing at the “public health” vending machine in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on Tuesday. “They put it in yesterday, and it’s empty already.

By 1 p.m., a drug-prevention-program worker was starting to restock the machine with more drug-test strips, Narcan and condoms — predicting the vending machine could need to be refilled “maybe twice a day, depending on which items go quite quickly.’’

“We have a lot of addicts and heroin users over here,” Williams said. “They should re-stock it immediately!”

Self-described crack smoker Minoshi Calpe, 56, had walked away with the second-to-last product in the vending machine — a fentanyl test strip — around 11 a.m. while sniffing that the glass used for the free pipes might not be up to her standards.

“I like the Pyrex because it’s a little thicker,’’ she said, also lamenting that “you can’t even sell that [vending stuff] because the programs give you all that stuff” already for free.

Oh, will the city not think of the discerning crack user, the gourmet, those whose standards are so very high, smoking only the best crack, shitting on only the nicest stretches of sidewalk? The churlish might think crackheads should be happy with what they get, but cheap crack pipes lower the tone of the entire neighborhood.


 

Mike Pence, Who Won’t Interact Alone with Women Other Than His Wife, Launches Presidential Bid

It’s official: Former Vice President Mike Pence (R) is running for president. And I, for one, think that a man who still can’t bring himself to condemn former President Donald Trump—despite Trump recently suggesting his supporters who chanted “Hang Mike Pence” on Jan. 6 might have been justified—is exactly the tough guy we need to get this nation back on track.

In an impotent little video shared on Fox News and on Twitter on Wednesday morning, the sentient dish rag declares that “different times call for different leadership.” He then proclaims, “Today, before God and my family, I’m announcing I’m running for president of the United States.”

Interacting with God and his family has never been a problem for Pence, it seems. On the other hand, interacting with the legions of women voters he’ll soon have to appeal to does present a bit of a challenge for the former vice president. For all his recent tough-guy swaggering, posing in comical photos riding a motorcycle, Pence, you’ll recall, has said he refuses to dine alone with any woman but his wife, Karen Pence—also known (primarily by Pence) as “Mother.” Pence doesn’t even attend events with alcohol without Mother, and when duty calls and he’s forced to work late nights at the office, he recuses female aides and is staffed only by men.

“Why won’t you be alone with young women, Mike? Why won’t you open yourself up to a false allegation or at least feed the rumor mill? Why did you learn the real lesson of #metoo?”


 

“Shoplifters of the World Unite”
The Smiths
Non-album single (January 1987)

 

Learn to love me, assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a list of crime
My only weakness is, well, never mind, never mind, oh

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over

Learn to love me and assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a listed crime
But last night the plans for a future war was all I saw on Channel 4

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Shoplifters of the world
Hand it over, hand it over, hand it over

A heartless hand on my shoulder, a push and it’s over
Alabaster crashes down, six months is a long time
Tried living in the real world instead of a shell
But before I began
I was bored before I even began

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and take over
Hand it over