News

Jun 09, 2023

Workers at three popular supermarket chains slam customers stealing to avoid a new hidden fee in stores

EMPLOYEES at major supermarkets are slamming customers who are stealing in order

EMPLOYEES at major supermarkets are slamming customers who are stealing in order to avoid a new fee in stores.

As plastic bags have become a thing of the past, New Jersey residents are apparently refusing to pay for reusable shopping bags.

Instead of buying reusable totes to carry their groceries from the store, shoppers are walking out with a store-owned item - handheld baskets.

"They get nasty when they’re told that they can't take the basket out of the store and some walk out anyway," Kathy, a New Jersey ShopRite employee, told the New York Post.

"It is a problem at our store. People seem to think that it's the store that came up with the bag ban and not the governor.

"People are stealing them because they’re forgetting their bags and don't want to pay 34 cents for a reusable bag."

The Garden State banned the use of plastic bags to address the pollution crisis.

"Plastic bags are one of the most problematic forms of garbage, leading to millions of discarded bags that stream annually into our landfills, rivers, and oceans," Governor Phil Murphy said at the time.

The new rule went into effect in May.

Following the ban, reports have increased of residents stealing shopping baskets as a way to revolt against the new rule.

"While most customers have adapted, unfortunately our members have seen an uptick in customers taking the store baskets and not returning them," said Mary Ellen Peppard, vice president of the New Jersey Food Council, a group that represents the state's grocers and supermarkets.

"These baskets are expensive and some stores have decided not to replace the baskets," she said.

A ShopRite employee in Palisades Park said that their store got rid of all of their baskets to prevent stealing.

"Customers were taking them to the car and then going home with it, so we got rid of them," the worker said.

"I’m thinking it's easier for them to bring it to the car and just leave it in the car.

"You would think they next day they’d bring it back, but I guess not."

The worker said that the basket thefts are "pretty stupid."

"I guess I can see the convenience of them bringing it to their car but I would find it very annoying to carry.

"I’d rather buy a bag for 99 cents than carry that thing, but I guess it's easier for them."

Some stores have decided to purchase new baskets but continued to see customers depart their store with them in hand.

"Every time we order 15 or 30 hand baskets, within a week they’re gone, I order them every other week," said Stop&Shop assistant manager Dan Adam.

To keep customers abreast, Karen O'Shea, a spokesperson with ShopRite, posts flyers throughout the store to remind customers to place the baskets back where they found them.

"We hope people who use our baskets will remember to leave them in store when they are done shopping so the baskets remain a resource for all our customers," she said.

Another store employee said that their shop came up with a unique way to avoid shopping basket theft - giving away cardboard boxes.

"They try to take the basket but we don't let them so we tell them to take the boxes instead of the basket," Cafasso's Fairway Market supervisor Pedro Ramirez said.

Surprisingly, not every store has experienced theft.

Wegman's spokesperson Marcie Rivera claims that her customers were very loyal and haven't stolen any of their baskets.

A similar plastic bag ban took effect in 2020 in Manhattan.

"Baskets? No one steals baskets here," David Kang, manager of an Upper West Side Key Food, told the NYP.

"That's definitely odd. It didn't happen when the bag ban happened."