The Community’s Concern

The shoplifting numbers in Door County don’t seem high – the Door County Sheriff’s Department reported just seven cases so far in 2013, while the Sturgeon Bay Police Department reported 23 cases in 2012.

But while the numbers of incidents look low, shoplifting affects many of the county’s small business owners.

“Long ago I had to accept the fact that it’s part of retail, that shrinkage [theft] is just part of your cost of goods and it’s one of the things that makes your markup on products have to be a little higher,” said Erin Bosman, owner of Patricia Shoppe in Egg Harbor.

To prevent shoplifting in her store, Bosman tries to keep the business well staffed and focus on customer service. She and her employees take items in and out of dressing rooms, talk with customers and try to keep good track of what’s happening in the store.

Illustration by Ryan Miller.

Sometimes even that effort isn’t enough.

“It’s not something we like to admit,” Bosman said. “I’ve caught people before, and it’s a shame. It’s never who you expect it to be. It happened to me at a holiday event where customers had to pay to get in. I don’t understand it, and I’m not going to try to understand it.”

Business owners work together to prevent shoplifting. If employees at one shop notice something has gone missing or see suspicious behavior, they’ll often call nearby stores to alert those employees.

“Oftentimes up here if someone is [shoplifting] in the extreme they’re doing it at multiple places and we in Egg Harbor have a good business relationship, often there’ll be a phone call that goes around,” Bosman said. “They’ll give a description… so that day we’ll all be alert.”

Catching a shoplifter can be tough, especially for small businesses with few employees and no surveillance or security system. If employees notice something is missing from a store, there’s a slim chance they’ll catch the person who took it.

“I think especially in Northern Door where there’s more shops and it’s more crowded with people it’s easier to get by with shoplifting,” said Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel. “We do get complaints on that and in some cases we can follow up with some video surveillance, but if there’s no [surveillance] it’s very difficult. Sometimes it’s not even noticed until days or weeks later that some items are missing.”

The punishments for shoplifting depend on how much is stolen. Stolen items worth more money, like more than $1,000, could lead to arrest and jail time, while lower-cost items lead to citations.

If shoplifters are from out of the state, Vogel said there’s an even smaller chance they’ll end up in court because the department won’t go out of state to bring people to court.

Door County District Attorney Ray Pelrine said issuing a warrant for arrest is the only way to get an out-of-state shoplifter back to local courts, but he can only do that for felony cases, or those worth more than $2,500. He said judges order restitution be paid to shopkeepers, sometimes immediately and sometimes as a condition of probation.

Pelrine said business owners can file private, civil action against shoplifters, and are allowed to confront a person in their stores or follow them out of their stores.

“If there’s any kind of laying on of hands, or attempts to physically detain [a shoplifter], then a merchant could get in trouble,” he said.

Shoplifting doesn’t just mean stealing an item from a store. Pelrine said intentionally taking an item from one part of a store to another or replacing a price tag for one from a cheaper item count as shoplifting, too.

According to Sturgeon Bay Police Lt. Clint Henry, merchants have to see someone concealing an item and going past the “point of last payment” with the item in order to prosecute.

“Without video it would be pretty difficult to know who took that without [merchants] observing who took it,” Henry said. “In those cases those would probably go unclaimed.”

Henry, Vogel and Pelrine recommend shop owners pay close attention to their wares, design stores so they can see all their merchandise and do inventory regularly so they know when things go missing.

Henry had advice for other shoppers, too.

“If people are seeing the violation…they should let somebody know – either local law enforcement or the store manager,” he said. “Ultimately by turning your head and ignoring it we’re paying the price later on. It’s everybody’s concern.”