Expect more clerks at self-checkout stations in Long Beach, after the City Council voted Tuesday to draft an ordinance requiring food and drug stores to staff up at their automated cashier counters.
Titled “Safe Stores are Staffed Stores,” elected officials say the local ordinance will be a first in the nation: It will establish a 2:1 staffing ratio, where grocery stores and retail drug stores must staff at least one worker to supervise every two self-checkout stations. It would also limit self-checkout lanes to purchases of 15 or fewer items.
At the request of Councilmember Mary Zendejas, the city will officially draft the ordinance and bring it back for a first reading within 30 days.
The council’s vote was 5-2 in favor, with dissent from Councilmember Daryl Supernaw and Councilmember Kristina Duggan, who questioned whether there was adequate evidence to suggest this would reduce crime, as was the stated goal.
The law will apply to food and drug retail stores in two categories: Those more than 15,000 square feet in size that sell primarily household groceries and those more than 85,000 square feet with at least 10% of their sales floor dedicated to the sale of foodstuffs.
For every hour a store fails to meet staffing requirements, it can be fined up to $2,500 for each violation.
Its approval came as a victory to grocery workers and union representatives who described a pattern of theft and harassment connected to under-supervised self-checkout areas. Without adequate staffing, several grocery workers in the audience said they are often harassed or threatened, most often when they are alone or without a nearby coworker. With more workers, they said, shoplifters would also be deterred.
“Habitual shoplifters are emboldened by company policy, which prohibits employees from assuming, confronting, or accusing,” said Jose Espinoza, a supervisor at Vons for 8 years. “As a result, I’ve witnessed hundreds, if not thousands of dollars walk right out the front door on a daily basis.”
Representatives from the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, California Faculty Association, and offices of both state Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal and state Sen. Lena Gonzalez lent their support Tuesday.
The law, officials say, is meant to take aim at citywide theft. A staff report Tuesday cited a 16% increase in petty thefts in Long Beach from 2023 to 2024. While he acknowledged that petty theft is trending downward this year, Long Beach Police Chief Wally Hebeish said that doesn’t account for unreported crimes.
This is because, according to workers who spoke Tuesday, company policy at some grocery chains bars employees from calling the police without management’s approval.
“It’s so very unreported because that’s what the industry is telling their employees to do,” she said.
“(Retail theft) has been growing even though it’s been unreported,” she added.
But the bill faced opposition from business groups who say the cost of the increased staffing is too high and will do nothing to drive down theft.
The bill mirrors the failed state bill S.B. 1446, or the Retail Theft Prevention and Safe Staffing Act, which sought to decrease retail theft using the same strategy. It ultimately died on the Assembly floor last November.
According to the California Chamber of Commerce, such a provision at the state level would have cost stores at least $497.1 million annually, as it would mean hiring more than 10,000 additional cashiers in an industry claimed to have razor-thin profits.
“We dealt with a similar bill in the state legislature last year, and we were successful in arguing against it and ultimately defeating it,” said Nate Ross, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association. “And that’s why it’s popped up in Long Beach now.”
Opponents also criticized the bill for not including other types of retail stores — only applying to food and drug stores — and for not requiring stores to staff security guards, despite the issue being centered around public safety.
“This is a multi-pronged effort by the union to impose staffing ratios on grocery stores,” Ross said. “The whole concept of this being about retail thefts is really just a convenience to last year’s discussion on it.”
Celeste Wilson, with the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, warned that the item may face legal challenges going forward.
But the city, along with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324, which worked on item alongside Zendejas’ office, both argue the city has the right under the state constitution to regulate private businesses when there is a “reasonable factual connection” between the law “and its goal of protecting public safety.”
Kiki Lizárraga, President of the Long Beach Latino Democratic Club, characterized concerns from business groups as scare tactics, meant to dissuade governments from improving workers rights at the worry of scaring away stores. Despite past battles over workers’ pay over the years, she said, stores have continued to spring up in Long Beach.
“You may hear from the grocery lobbyists that policies like this will drive business out of Long Beach,” Lizárraga said. “The fear-mongering about store closures is not rooted in fact. It is a deflection from the industry’s refusal to invest in adequate staffing in our communities. We cannot allow corporate cost-cutting to come at the expense of community safety and worker dignity.”