Mark Walker with the Disheveled Leader did a great article on police calls and Walmart in Sioux Falls;
Wal-Mart stores draw more calls to police in Sioux Falls than any other retailer, far exceeding call volumes for similar big-box competitors in the city.
In 2015, Sioux Falls Police were called to a Wal-Mart store more than three times a day for offenses ranging from shoplifting to sex offenses.
This of course is no shocker, back in 2014 Forbes Magazine did an article about how much Walmart costs Federal taxpayers;
Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing, according to a report published to coincide with Tax Day, April 15.
Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 400 national and state-level progressive groups, made this estimate using data from a 2013 study by Democratic Staff of the U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce.
“The study estimated the cost to Wisconsin’s taxpayers of Walmart’s low wages and benefits, which often force workers to rely on various public assistance programs,” reads the report, available in full here.
“It found that a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.”
They are a leach of the highest order. I hope the city council takes action on limiting their police calls.
We should start by getting rid of the “Yogi Bear” camp sites on the Walmart parking lots. Overtime, this camping will merely become a Trumpian version of “Hooverville,” if we don’t stop it soon.
There are, to be sure, a lot of things that Walmart can be criticized for, but I think the responsibility for crimes committed on Walmart property rightfully belong to those committing these offenses.
To its credit, Walmart is working very hard to reduce those costs to the taxpayer as it deals with shoplifters.
The city answer is to not negotiate with the police union. With no police, there’s no longer an expense. Walmart will add their own police. They’ll become a sovereign city within a sovereign city.
If the city can annex you without notice, can you secede without litigation? There’s no due process so just do it.
The overnighters are because hotel and camp site taxes are to high. Whether it’s at Walmart or hotel parking lots, it will happen. If the city can build a private hotel, can’t they allow campers at Walmart? Campers pay sales tax when retail is convenient and cheap.
Gypsies, tramps, and thieves are synonymous with Walmart.
Unofficially, live in a very small town or away from any parcel big enough for a Walmart. There’s a reason our mayor lives 70 miles out of town on his own lake.
Marco,
In recent years, to cut costs and hopefully enhance profit, Walmart decided to cut staff and become more dependent upon self serve checkouts, which has increased shoplifting at their stores. So the problem is not just the criminals, it is also the inherent policies that Walmart enacted beginning with the “Great Recession.”
I also remember about ten years ago, prior to the “Great Recession,” that Walmart started an in store policy to watch but not detain those shoplifters who the store believed were stealing less than $ 25.00 worth of merchandise. This policy some how became public and thus only further embolden thieves, along with the collapse of the economy, to create the current mess. Although, recently I have noticed that Walmart employees, especially at night, are starting to stop shoppers as they exit the store after having used self serve checkouts.
FKA Winston,
The trend to more self checkout lanes has come to more retailers. When I ask the floating monitor how it’s working out, I’m told things like “it’s all good.” Don’t get it – at least with current technology and how it’s affecting jobs – unless the business model is to have fewer checkout clerks and more loss prevention specialists.
Brave new world of commerce, huh?
Marco,
A “Brave new world of commerce,” indeed. Whenever I go to Walmart, which is more than I should (I am cheap), I refuse to use the self serve checkouts. Because I want to employee people, and I do not want all of the profit just going to Arkansas and China….(China?…. I kind of sound like Trump 🙁 )
A former prosecutor and current MN lawmaker on Walmart using cops instead of private security as a method of undercutting costs.
https://advocate.stpaulunions.org/2016/12/15/lawmakers-seek-answers-as-walmart-strains-local-police-time-municipal-resources/?link_id=1&can_id=c319e2f28748bad01bb7f05899ff52aa&source=email-labor-update-90&email_referrer=labor-update-90&email_subject=labor-update