RENO, Nev. (Colo.) – Reno business owners are speaking out about feeling helpless over rampant theft inside their stores.
Kytanna Prokosch started making swimsuits for bodybuilding competitions right out of high school. Enjoying her creative freedom, she turned that passion into a full-time business as the owner of Battle Her Bones Bikini. Prokosch puts her love into each bikini, designing and sewing each one by hand. She says her swimwear is always with the customer in mind. Because each swimsuit is reversible, allowing us to offer buyers her 2-for-1 deal. She also puts her logo on the prints to avoid “nasty” tags.
“The fabric is printed in California, then shipped, cut and sewn. The sewing part takes about an hour,” Prokosh explains.
But recently, Porkosh realized that the fruits of his labor were not paying off as thefts at his store increased.
“When that happens, it's not just one suit. It's multiple and other small items that we have,” Prokosh said.
The loss of revenue forced Prokosh to not only pass the loss on to its customers, but also to close one of its stores.
“The price of our products will definitely go up at the end of the year. It's frustrating, especially when you're paying employees for their sewing time just to see that item go away.” said Prokosh.
Prokosh said she has no problem confronting a thief if she's inside the store, but she's reluctant to ask employees to do the same to avoid possible danger. She said retail theft isn't a felony until the stolen items exceed $1,200, and thieves who know the law will steal close to that amount but won't go near it to avoid jail. added.
“Even if we had a camera, we can't stop them from hitting a dead end. Then we have to do extra work to find that person, and our day takes up hours. It will be destroyed,” Prokosh said.
To combat this problem, the Sparks Police Department launched the “Back our Businesses” initiative, which involves undercover investigations involving plainclothes officers.
“The scope of retail theft does not only occur at large corporations. It affects small businesses as well as consumers. If a business is ripping off a small business in our community, may be so rip-off that they have to go out of business,” said Sparks City Attorney Wes Duncan.
Similarly, Reno PD does what it calls “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design,” going into stores and educating business owners about what they can do to protect themselves.
“We'll bring in a police officer to assess your business and see if there's a way to reduce crime by setting up your store a certain way or by improving visibility from your windows. There are many things we can do to stop someone from targeting your business,” said Reno Police Department spokesman Stephen Greenlee.
Greenlee explained that the department will go a step further and provide uniformed police officers as security guards. Both departments said that if a theft occurs, the owner has the right to detain the perpetrator until he or she appears at the scene of a citizen's arrest.
“I think any time there's a deterrent where police officers are arrested and people are sent to jail based on these retail thefts, it's going to deter criminals from going into these businesses, because this could be “It puts the idea in their head that maybe this isn't their day. Maybe they shouldn't do this criminal act,” Greenlee said.
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