ABC store thefts are on the rise in Richmond

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) - Richmond police are sounding the alarm as ABC stores are losing their merchandise at a disturbing rate.

”We had close to 900 shoplifting thefts last year,” said Lt. Warren Andorfer. “We’re in the 1,300s this year, so we’re considerably up, and I feel like the trend is continuous. It’s not. We’re not slowing it down at all as it’s continued to drive up.”

The Richmond Police Department says shoplifters are going into the ABC stores, taking the bottles right off the shelves, and walking out without even attempting to hide their identity.

”I know we had at least one suspect that was involved in over 20 shopliftings at the same store, and we were finally able to arrest him after he was identified by staff and officers were able to make a quick arrest,” said Andorfer.

The most recent case they are working on happened just this week. Police say a woman went into the ABC store on West Main Street and took cinnamon whiskey from the store.

Now, RPD is working to end all of the thefts. Their strategies include increasing patrols outside the store, having plain-clothed officers inside the store, and working with store owners and managers to change certain daily operations that will better protect the merchandise.

They also stress the importance of surveillance cameras.

“We want to make sure that we have the surveillance videos positioned where they are capturing very good photos of these suspects so that during the investigation, we can hopefully track these people and have good photos to do a comparison so when we go to court, we’ll get a successful prosecution,” said Andorfer.

RPD says store owners and managers can reach out to the police department if they would like help in building a plan to protect their merchandise.

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