INCIDENCE OF SHOPLIFTING

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28840, 10 March 1959, Page 6

INCIDENCE OF SHOPLIFTING

Amendment To Law Urged

(From Out Own Reporter) TIMARU, March 9. Concern at the incidence of shoplifting was expressed by Mr W. P. Wellington (Dunedin) when moving an Otago remit at the annual conference of the New Zealand Retailers’ Federation that representations be made to the Minister of Justice (Mr Mason) to have the law amended so that a separate schedule of penalties could be prescribed for the type of charges coming within the category of shoplifting. The remit was carried. Mr Wellington «aid the remit had particular reference to children. Members of the association had been advised of the problem, but it had increased in Severity.

“We do not hold with the view that retailers are themselves to blame,” Mr Wellington added. “The public are tempted by having other things put in front of them,” he said.

The conference also adopted an Auckland remit, proposed by Mr R. S. Milne, that the Minister be urged to amend the law to the extent necessary to see that where persons were reasonably detained by storekeepers for suspected shoplifting, there should be no liability devolving upon the storekeeper if subsequently the person was found to have been wrongfully detained. A footnote to the Auckland remit said that at the present there -were divergent views on the right of shopkeepers to detain customers suspected of shoplifting, and it was felt that no unreasonable barrier should be placed in the way of detaining a person whom a shopkeeper believed was involved in shoplifting. Hire Purchase Regulations An Otago remit that the Government be urged to revoke the hire purchase regulations in respect of classes of goods sold by trade groups within the federation was carried.

A Wellington-Hutt Valley proposal that the trading banks be asked to provide the slot system for after-hours banking in each of their head banks in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, subject to a survey in Wellington indicating support for this facility, and that other retail organisations be asked to support this request, was carried. After considering an Otago remit the conference decided to sponsor a meeting of Interested trade organisations to make a joint approach to the Minister of Finance (Mr Nordmeyer) to secure the elimination of the third day of the holidays observed by the trading banks at Christmas and Easter.