Supermarkets and retail drug stores like CVS in Anaheim may soon be required to have employees watching and helping out at their self-checkout stands.
At Tuesday’s 5 p.m. city council meeting, officials in OC’s largest city will be the latest in Southern California to consider drafting an ordinance establishing staffing ratios, item limits and restricted items for self-checkout stations at local grocery stores.
“The expansion of self-service checkout stations in grocery and drug retail stores has been a growing trend nationally,” reads a staff report.
“While self-checkout technology can improve efficiency, concerns have emerged regarding its impact on worker safety, retail theft, customer service, and employment levels.”
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, who called for the discussion with Councilwoman Norma Campos Kurtz, said the ordinance was about addressing theft and supporting workers.
“Regulating self-checkouts helps curb shoplifting, protects workers who often serve multiple lanes at the same time, and ensures those that need assistance have a dedicated employee to help them,” she wrote in a Monday text message.
Kurtz did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Nate Rose, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association, said self-checkout ordinances like ones recently adopted in Long Beach and Costa Mesa drive up operational costs, making grocery prices more expensive.
“Labor’s the number one cost of running a grocery store,” he said in a Monday phone interview.
“Anytime you’re going to impose a lot of different restrictions on these things and then require a certain amount of employees over what the grocery stores are already implementing, that does increase costs. There’s really nowhere else for that to end up other than as a higher price on the shelf,” Rose said.
Rose said cities looking to implement such regulations need to talk to grocers – something he said officials in Anaheim have not done.
Jenna Thompson, a spokesperson for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 union, said Anaheim’s proposed ordinance will provide workers with extra support.
“Workers who oversee self-checkout areas are commonly helping customers with lotto tickets, Coinstar and more, while unlocking locked cases and cleaning up spills in the front. This is on top of their main job – to help customers who are using self-checkout,” Thompson said in a Monday email.
“When cities pass an ordinance like Long Beach or Costa Mesa, they will provide thousands of workers – union and non-union – with extra support and better service for customers.”
The union backed Costa Mesa’s self-checkout ordinance, arguing it would help curb theft.
Earlier this year, Costa Mesa became the first city in Orange County to adopt an ordinance regulating self-checkout stands that is expected to go into effect late next month.
[Read: Costa Mesa to Require Staffed Self-Checkout Stands]
The Costa Mesa ordinance requires at least one dedicated employee to monitor the self-checkout stands and an employee for every three self-checkout stations opened.
The ordinance there also limits shoppers using the self checkout kiosks to 15 items and bans them from buying alcohol, tobacco, and theft-deterrent tagged items at the stands.
There also has to be at least one regular checkout manned by a cashier opened before the self-checkout aisle is opened.
Violations to the new rule can result in employees or customers suing the stores with penalties of up to $1,000 per employee per day.
Costa Mesa’s ordinance was based on a similar ordinance adopted last year in Long Beach – the first city in the nation, according to a staff report, to implement a self-checkout law.
To look at a comparison between Long Beach & Costa Mesa’s ordinances, click here.
Cities aren’t the only ones looking to better regulate self-checkout kiosks.
A state bill that’s slowly making its way through the legislature – SB 442 – would establish similar rules for self-checkout stands without requiring a staffing ratio like in Long Beach and Costa Mesa.
Editor’s note: Ashleigh Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s board of directors.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
