New York mayor says retailers must force shoppers to remove masks when entering stores to prevent crime. 'It's not about being fearful of a pandemic.'
- NYC Mayor Eric Adams said face masks obstruct stores from identifying potential shoplifters.
- "Do not allow people to enter the store without taking off their face masks," he told a local radio station.
New York Mayor Eric Adams has a clear message for retailers: If you want to prevent theft, don't allow shoppers to enter with face masks on.
"Do not allow people to enter the store without taking off their face masks," Adams told a local radio station Monday. "When you see these mask-wearing people, it's not about being fearful of a pandemic. (They're) fearful of the police catching (them) for their misdeeds."
Adams said that stores need to be able to use technologies to "identify those shoplifters and those who have committed serious crimes," but that face masks — an item that has become commonplace, albeit decreasingly so, due to the coronavirus pandemic — make it hard to do so. He added that once in the store, shoppers can feel free to wear face masks.
Adams' comments come as retailers have sounded the alarms about above-average theft rates for months. Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon said in December 2022 that stores would close and prices would rise if theft levels did not drop.
Missing inventory also reduced Target's gross margin by more than $400 million in fall 2022 compared with the year prior, Target CFO Michael Fiddelke said in November 2022 during a company earnings call. He said the company expected those profit losses to grow to $600 million by the end of the fiscal year,
The theft issue has ballooned into a $94.5 billion problem for the retail industry, according to a 2022 study conducted by the National Retail Federation.
Still, other retailers are walking back their messaging around theft. Walgreens CFO James Kehoe said in January the company "cried too much" about theft the year prior, saying it hadn't seen as much shrinkage in recent months.