Save bodega workers! Albany must crack down on retail theft

Your local bodega, and the people who work there, desperately need help.

State lawmakers have four weeks left before they’re due to go home for the year.

That leaves plenty of time to do more criminal-justice fixes — including getting serious about retail theft.

Shoplifting with impunity is killing the city’s bodegas, drugstores, and other small shops (except the illegal pot shops, sigh), and plaguing higher-end biz as well.

It’s also endangering the people who earn their living in retail

Weeks ago, state Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D-SI) and Assemblyman Manny De Los Santos (D-Inwood) introduced a bill to make assaulting retail workers a felony, bail-eligible offense — giving them the same protection as transit employees, EMTs, cops, firefighters, and other “frontline” workers.

Click here to view the full article