State retail associations play an important role interfacing with local legislators. Some groups – such as those in Arizona, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Texas – go a step beyond, developing strong loss prevention communities. This month I’m pleased to be a part of two state Organized Retail Crime meetings. On April 20, the Georgia Retail Association will host their ORC meeting in Atlanta and on April 28, the Retail Council of New York State will host their second event in Albany.
In addition to these events, some state associations are active in creating or enhancing state laws to address retail crime. In Texas, one piece of legislation – H.B. 2482, which relates to the offense of ORC – just cleared the state’s Finance Committee. If passed by the full legislature, the bill would remove the minimum threshold value for a charge of organized retail theft of $1,500. Punishment would be increased to the next higher category of offense for persons that organize, supervise, finance, or manage one or more other persons engaged in the activity; or if it is shown at trial the defendant caused a fire exit alarm to sound or become activated, deactivated or prevented a fire exit alarm from sounding; or used a shielding or deactivation instrument to prevent or attempt to prevent detection by a retail theft detector. The bill would take effect September 1, 2011 and apply only to an offense committed on or after the effective date.
I want to thank Joe Williams and the Texas Retail Association team for all of their legislative efforts and Joe for his personal support of the upcoming NRF LP Conference, where he will be speaking on Tuesday afternoon.
If you’re not already involved in your state, now is a good time to find out how you can make a difference.