Queens District Attorney expands retail theft program boroughwide
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Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz expands Merchant Business Improvement Program. Photo via Queens District Attorney’s Office
By Lauren Berardi
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and the NYPD announced a borough-wide expansion of the Merchants Business Improvement Program on Tuesday, as retail theft continues to be an issue for city law enforcement.
The program has been previously implemented in Jamaica, Astoria and Flushing, with the goal of “combat[ing] repeat shoplifting and the harassment and threatening of customers and store staff by the handful of individuals responsible for many of the disruptions to local businesses.”
The initiative began in Jamaica in June 2021 in partnership with the NYPD and the Jamaica business community “to ensure that the community felt safe patronizing local businesses hit hard by the pandemic,” the DA says. The program expanded to Astoria and Flushing earlier this year.
The program will now expand beyond those pilot communities, and will now include every NYPD precinct in Queens.
Businesses that participate in the program can contact the police when someone engages in “disruptive, dangerous or illegal behavior” in their establishment. Responding officers then issue a trespass notice and warn the person that if they return to the location, it could result in their arrest.
142 business locations are currently a part of the program. 83 trespass affidavits have been served to individuals, and only five of them were arrested for violating the notices.
“The feedback from the merchants in the pilot programs has been very positive,” said Katz. “With the high rate of retail theft we are seeing throughout the city, it is absolutely essential that we keep fighting back. Expanding this program across the borough is an important part of that fight.”
“We are not going to allow a small group of individuals to terrorize shopkeepers, their employees and customers and to disrupt our local economy. We will not allow that to happen, because when our local businesses thrive, our communities thrive,” she added.
Shoplifting has been an ongoing problem in New York City since 2018, with officials say of it being committed by the same people in the same locations.
Katz’s program was created in response to the increase in shoplifting in Queens, and has said that while the program has made a difference, “more is needed, not just in Queens, but across the city.”
The NYPD said that only 327 people contributed to a third of all city shoplifting arrests in 2022.
In May, Mayor Eric Adams announced what he called a comprehensive plan to combat retail theft across all five boroughs as the rate of shoplifting grew. Between 2021 and 2022, shoplifting increased by 44 percent.
“Shoplifters and organized crime rings prey on businesses that have already taken a hit due to COVID-19, but, with this comprehensive plan, we’re going to beat back on retail theft through a combination of law enforcement, prevention, and intervention,” Mayor Adams said.
Adams’ plan consists of targeted solutions to decrease retail theft by individuals as well as by organized crime rings. Solutions include an increase in law enforcement efforts and enhanced social service programming and resources to prevent shoplifting.
More recently petit larceny has gone up 0.1 percent in the last 28 days compared to the same period last year in NYPD Patrol Borough Queens North, and in Queens South, there is an 11.8 percent decrease from last year.
“The NYPD welcomes the expansion of this innovative program,” Assistant Chief Kevin Williams, Commanding Officer of Patrol Borough Queens South said of Katz’ program. “[It reinforces the deep collaboration between the Police Department and the office of Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.”
“It’s an initiative that activates the best of our intelligence-driven policing strategies to further reduce crime and improve the quality of life for all who live in, work in, and visit the great borough of Queens,” Williams added.
The DA says that business owners who participated in the pilot program have had positive experiences with the program.
Mee Mee Xie, owner of Wong Nutrition in Flushing said that her store became “much safer” and she “has not experienced another [shoplifting] incident.”
“This is a great program to help store owners and their employees, to make sure that we have an added layer of protection against criminal behavior and can continue to serve our customers in peace,” Xie said.
Robert Battipaglia, owner of Grand Wine & Liquor in Astoria also had a positive experience with the program.
“This is a helpful tool that makes the store owners like myself feel less helpless and know that we have a way of protecting ourselves,” Battipaglia said. “I am a proud member of the Merchants Business Improvement Program and appreciate DA Katz’s commitment to the safety of local business owners.”
There has been some criticism however, Western Queens City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, who ran against Katz for District Attorney, says the program doesn’t address the underlying causes of retail crime.
“It doesn't reduce recidivism,” she told the Eagle in May. “It kicks recidivism down the road.”
Cabán also said that trespass notices make it easier for prosecutors to bump up smaller misdemeanors, like shoplifting, into other felonies.
“What a trespass notice program does is give a district attorney the ability to upcharge,” she said. “It immediately ups the ante from potential misdemeanor charges that carry no more than a year in jail, to felony charges that carry that can carry many years in upstate prison.”
“My question is whether when this program is presented to business owners, whether they understand that what the trespass notice does is just simply give the ability for the DA to… instead of jailing people for up to a year be able to jail them for up to several years,” she added.
