Retailers and prosecutors say organized retail theft is a major driver of losses; city agencies outline investigations and diversion options

Retailers, police and prosecutors told the Board of SupervisorsPublic Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee on May 13 that a persistent rise in shoplifting is harming stores and employees, and that organized retail theft — professional crews stealing to resell online — accounts for a large share of dollar losses.

Ben Dugan, CVSdirector of organized retail crime, said CVSdata show a small number of downtown stores generate a disproportionate share of external‑theft losses: "42% of all of our losses in the Bay Area from external theft came from our 12 stores in San Francisco," he said, adding that professional crews — not opportunistic shoplifters — account for the bulk of dollar losses even if low‑level incidents are more common.

Walgreens regional vice president Jason Cunningham said Walgreens operates 53 San Francisco locations but closed 17 in recent years, citing theft and the rising cost of doing business. "We have 53 locations in San Francisco ... we have closed 17 locations," Cunningham said, and said stores now spend far above the chain average on uniformed officers and other store protections.

San Francisco Police Department commanders described a two‑track enforcement approach: patrol officers, merchant walks and data‑driven foot beats to deter opportunistic theft, and a detective‑level retail theft unit that aggregates video, incident data and evidence to support multi‑store investigations and felony charges where appropriate. Acting Deputy Chief Raj Vaswani pointed to regional, multiagency cases and said investigators have recovered large quantities of product in coordinated operations.

David Campos, chief of staff to the District Attorney, said the DAs office is pursuing team‑based investigations with prosecutors, analysts and police and using data partnerships with industry consultants such as Alto Alliance. At the same time, Campos said only a small share of reported petty‑theft incidents result in arrests that reach the prosecutor: "only about 7% of petty theft incidents actually result in an arrest," he told the committee, underlining the challenge of converting storefront reports into prosecutable cases.

Supervisors and presenters agreed on two parallel needs: (1) prosecutorial and law‑enforcement coordination to aggregate incidents and pursue organized crews, and (2) community and treatment‑first responses for people arrested due to substance use, homelessness or mental illness. Juvenile and adult probation representatives described diversion programs and graduated sanctions, including KARC point‑of‑arrest diversion for youth, Make It Right restorative justice, increased reporting and electronic monitoring for supervised adults, and links to treatment and job programs.

Retail and industry witnesses urged state and federal policy changes to address resale markets and legal thresholds. Industry groups asked the legislature to extend funding for the state organized retail crime task force and to renew aggregation tools in state law (AB 1065 / Penal Code §409.4) and pointed to pending bills targeting online marketplaces.

The committee took public comment from retailers, labor and defense advocates and agreed to follow up with SFPD, the DA, and probation to provide detailed counts of arrests, repeat offenders, prosecution outcomes and the use of aggregation/organized‑theft strategies. Supervisor Safaie moved and the committee filed the hearing.