STOCKTON – A program in San Joaquin County is gaining momentum and you may see some interesting billboards popping up this summer letting shoplifters know they will be prosecuted.
“We were robbed the day we opened and every month after that we were broken into,” says Dry Cleaning co-owner Oliver Opus.
Dry Cleaning is a retail business in Stockton. They shared an entire Google Drive folder with CBS News Sacramento full of images of thefts and burglaries. They say it’s something they have to deal with all the time.
“Time is such a critical component in solving this or finding out who did this,” Opus said.
San Joaquin County’s Stockton Taking Action Against Retail Theft (STAART) program could help.
Led by the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce, the program recently received more than $1 million from the province to implement four components to combat shoplifting: workshops for merchants, camera systems for small businesses, an app that anyone can download and tips or can share images. that goes directly to the police and the public prosecutor, and billboards that warn thieves against theft.
“We’re putting up billboards all over San Joaquin County that say, ‘If you steal in San Joaquin County, we’ll prosecute,’” said Frank Ferral, Chief Policy Officer of the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce.
The app and billboards are still in development, but the Chamber of Commerce says they should be ready by mid-July.
It’s the app that will do the heavy lifting, giving the community the opportunity to be an extra set of eyes and get the information quickly delivered where it needs to go: the district attorney’s office.
“It goes straight to the person we need,” Opus says. “I think it’s a great solution to a problem that affects all businesses here.”
“I mean, video is the best thing you can do, we want people to know that eyes are watching you,” Ferral said.
The Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce is the first in the state to partner with the DA on a program like this. They will soon be going out to share the model with other rooms.
“These small businesses are the heartbeat of our community, so we want to do everything we can to help them thrive and not just survive,” Ferral said.
STAART is only a two-year program for now until they see how it all turns out, but they say they hope that after two years they might not even need it if it’s successful.
