The California Retailers Association (CRA) was disappointed that AB 1603 wasn’t approved by the Assembly Public Safety Committee last week, but the coalition of retail stores is now looking to AB 2390 to solve the problems that smash and grab incidents are causing small business owners statewide.
“These are family-owned businesses and many times small businesses that have weathered what we went through with COVID being shut down and to have these smash and grabs now, it’s just a continual victimization,” said Rachel Michelin. “Communities are being impacted and typically what we're seeing is more and more of these small businesses that are being impacted are minority-owned.”
AB 1603 was designed to reduce the threshold amount for petty theft and shoplifting from $950 to $400 in order to deter serial theft among members of smash and grab crime rings, which had been the law prior to 2014 when Proposition 47 was approved by voters, according to media reports.
“We're disappointed but not surprised,” Michelin told the Southern California Record. “Part of the challenge on a lot of these retail theft bills is that people wanted to figure out ways to solve the problem.”
As previously reported in the Southern California Record, critics decry retail theft legislation that they see as a quick fix to a problem that requires a long-term solution.
In response, CRA is now promoting AB 2390, legislation that does not attempt to lower the sentencing guidelines from $950 to $400 but instead seeks to aggregate multiple incidents.
“What we are advocating for is fixing a loophole in Prop 47, which is that you cannot aggregate charges,” Michelin said. “We really took our time in talking to a number of stakeholders. We talked with the authors of Prop 47. We talked with criminal justice advocates. We talked with the Attorney General's office and the governor's office. We really did our due diligence to figure out what did we think had a chance of getting through the legislature and that could help put some deterrents on.”
If AB 2390 is approved, cases would be aggregated up to $950 and there are also pre-felony opportunities for defendants to be funneled into a diversion program.
"You wouldn't even necessarily have to do jail time but we want to ensure defendants are getting the support they need because what we also know is that a lot of folks who are apprehended have mental health problems and addiction issues," Michelin added. "They steal from a store, sell the item, and then they are buying opioids and it's constant. We want to be able to provide the off wrap so that people then can get into diversion programs and get the help that they need without going to prison."
AB 2390 will be heard in the Assembly Public Safety Committee on April 5.