Officials in another Orange County city are considering requiring stores to staff their self-checkout lines in an effort to curb theft and customer anger.
In recent months, a couple of cities in Southern California have started to regulate self-service stands at retail drug stores and supermarkets, with unions saying it will provide workers the help they need when stores are busy.
Grocers argue the regulations will only leave customers paying a more expensive bill at checkout amid high food inflation costs.
Anaheim leaders are expected to be the next to consider regulations after city officials in Long Beach and Costa Mesa adopted their own ordinances regulating self-checkout stands at retail drug stores and supermarkets.
[Read: Another Orange County City May Require Staffed Self-Checkout Stands]
On Tuesday, city council members voted 5-2 to direct staff to draft and bring back an ordinance based on Costa Mesa’s new law as well as potentially expand it to other stores beyond supermarkets and retail pharmacies that have self-checkout stands..
Councilwoman Norma Campos Kurtz, who requested the discussion with Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, said she wanted to debate a potential self-checkout ordinance based on her own shopping experience in the city watching older customers struggle at the kiosks.
“I’ve seen them actually leave a cart full of groceries and just walk out because they’re frustrated there’s no one there to help them,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Aitken said she wants to protect workers and raised concerns about retail theft.
“I have been there when the self checkouts aren’t working, and people get frustrated and get angry at the employees,” she said.
“There is a ton of retail loss or else we wouldn’t have such heightened security officers that are in our grocery stores so that just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve seen people weigh one banana and then put four in their bag,” Aitken said.
Councilmembers Natalie Meeks and Ryan Balius were the dissenting votes.
Meeks said she doesn’t want to put Anaheim businesses at a disadvantage and she would prefer for the state to implement a law.
“I really am concerned with putting our businesses in Anaheim at a financial disadvantage with more burdensome regulations than just across our border, and making it more expensive for our residents to buy their groceries,” she said.
Balius said there are serious concerns about retail theft when the self-checkout aisle is left unattended, but the government shouldn’t meddle with the free market.
“Anaheim should not be in the business of telling employers what to do and I think if the grocery and the drug store operators determine that unstaffed self-checkout creates safety risk or increase loss, then it’s incumbent upon them to kind of change their ways,” he said.
The ordinance in Costa Mesa, the first OC city to adopt such a law, sets a one employee for every three self-checkout kiosks ratio, limits shoppers to 15 items at the self-service stands and bans them from buying theft-deterrent and cabinet locked products at self-scan counters.
[Read: Costa Mesa to Require Staffed Self-Checkout Stands]
Mike Lyster, a city spokesman, said in a Monday email that there are roughly 12 drug stores, 8 general retailers like Target and Walmart, and 7 potential supermarkets in the city that could be impacted by such an ordinance but it’s unclear which have self-checkout stands.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324, a union that represents grocery workers, says the proposal will provide support for supermarket employees as well as curb shoplifting.
“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,” Jenna Thompson, a spokesperson for the union, said in a Monday email.
The California Grocers Association, a statewide trade group representing hundreds of grocery retailers and suppliers, says it will hike up operational costs and result in higher grocery prices.
Tim James, Director of Local Government Relations for the Association, said city officials did not reach out to them to get their input on the issue.
“Had council or staff engaged grocers, you would know that the regulation of self checkout is a failed policy experiment,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“You would know it has resulted in removal of self-checkout due to over regulation and uncontrolled enforcement. You would know data shows it has no impact on retail theft, with self checkout being the least likely place for theft.”
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.
