In retail-heavy Emeryville, shoplifting has declined. But can you believe the numbers?

Harjinder Gill sees someone shoplifting almost every day. Sitting in front of a security screen covering 25 angles of the Mega Store on 1400 Powell Street, he sees them picking up two candy bars and slipping one up their sleeve  — “then they pay only for the other.” 

As manager of the convenience store for nine years, he is all too familiar with the crimes, but that doesn’t mean he’s likely to pick up the phone and call the police.

Reported shoplifting in Emeryville declined about 12% from 2023 to 2025, falling from 606 cases to 534, according to FBI data. Through August, reported shoplifting was nearly flat compared with the same period last year, increasing by just nine cases. But those digits only reflect incidents that reach law enforcement. 

Lt. Pablo Rojas from the Emeryville Police Department said the “majority” of shoplifting reports come from big-box retailers such as Target and Home Depot, while some smaller retailers said they rarely call police for minor thefts. 

“It’s like $5, $10, how can you call the police?” Gill said. Although he believes shoplifting happens almost everyday at the store, the last time he called the police was Aug. 14

Large chain retailers equipped with better loss protection  and community outreach teams are better positioned to follow through with police reports, Rojas said. Some have brought police a pile of developed investigations that officers can review, he added. 

Smaller retailers say they don’t have the time to call the police, according to a Forbes survey in 2024, which found more than half of retailers wouldn’t report thefts for that reason.

“If we’re not aware that there’s a problem out there then it’s going to be near impossible to fix,” Rojas said. “There is no call too small.”

Cris Perez, an employee at Nirvana Mart in Emeryville, notices shoplifting frequently, particularly on weekends and holidays. But over the past six months, he has not called the police once, saying he would only do so if an incident became too “heated” or started drawing attention. 

It was one of several informal thresholds shop owners said they use to decide when to call police. Yasser Elhayek, owner of Emeryville Market, said he would never call the police until things got “physical.” 

An employee from Emeryville 7-Eleven said the store generally does not call police until the stolen merchandise reaches over $300.

Large chain stores also set their own threshold, Rojas said.

Reluctance to report does not necessarily mean the decline in shoplifting is inaccurate. Ernesto Lopez, a senior research specialist at the Council on Criminal Justice, said if stores consistently report only a portion of shoplifting, that underestimated data can still show a general trend.

But even if the data captures the general trend, it cannot show the severity level of the theft. “We can count incidents, but we couldn’t count the harm,” Lopez said.

Emeryville Market lost about 5% to 10% of its revenue due to shoplifting, according to Elhayek. At Chevron, Gill pointed to a third-party inventory report showing $1,770.35 in losses in December, even though he said there was no single major theft that month. The losses included $309.81 in candy and $175.43 in energy drinks. 

These losses, however, can ultimately affect customers. At Emeryville Market, Elhayek said he factors the theft into the prices he charges. “Good people pay for the bad people,” he said with a head shake. 

“But my management always tries to not go over the 40% profit margin,” Gill said, “because if you raise the margin, the customer will stop coming.”

Then, there’s the cost of security. Gill said Chevron uses a security camera system that costs about $5,000 and requires regular maintenance. He mounted a big screen showing the footage  on the store wall– a stronger statement than an “on camera” sign. 

Not every retailer in Emeryville sees shoplifting as a major problem. At Northside Supermarket, co-owner Ali Korin said shoplifting is not a big problem. Korin and his family  has been here for 36 years. Inheriting this store from his father, he knows most people from the neighborhood, and that helps minimize shoplifting.

Nirvana Mart also caters to regular customers. To the shoplifters among them, Perez offers a note of caution: “We always tell them we don’t want you to go to jail. We want you to be free. But if you want to be free, you have to respect us and not shoplift.”

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