Shoplifting Plagues Cambridge Stores

Area merchants are attributing much of the extensive shoplifting from stores in the Square to students, including Harvard students.

Twenty per cent of Coop shoplifters are Harvard students, according to detailed Coop records. A security agent at the Coop said yesterday that 22 of last month's 90 arrests for shoplifting at the store were Harvard students.

"About half the shoppers are students so we inevitably get people from Harvard shoplifting," Steve Rankin, sales promotion manager at the Coop said.

Most of the area merchants agree that the rise in shoplifting coincides with the return of students to their respective campuses.

"I'm afraid to think how much stuff disappears every single day," John Turattini, the owner of Schoenhof's Foreign Books, explained, adding, "now there is more shoplifting than ever, with the crowds of students back. It's when the students are here that we get more losses," he said.

Schoenhof loses between $3000 and $5000 every year to shoplifters.

Many of the stores in the Harvard area have resorted to expensive security systems to deter the mounting losses. The Coop has a network of plainclothes agents throughout the store. Serendipity and The Discount Book Seller both have detector systems though which their clientele must pass as they leave.

J. August Co. has installed a $4000 system with a television screen and camera that monitors the back aisles. "I would-be ecstatic if I only had $4000 losses in a year." The store catches one shoplifter per week, he added.

The smaller stores, however, can not afford the sophisticated equipment. Chris Kotelly, at Nini's Corner, said the store loses approximately $300 a year, most of it during the fall and winter, but we only have mirrors and our own surveillance."

Mallory Slate, manager of Bob Slate Stationer, said shoplifters "take small expensive things that are easy to put in your pocket. But it all adds up."

Slate said he has lost over $500 worth of goods in the past year. "We can only depend on our vigilance to try and catch more of these people."

Chris Catchick of the Harvard Book Stores agreed--"Shoplifting is rising constantly, books are becoming increasingly expensive. This applies to academic books especially and, being where we are, there is a good percentage of shoplifters who are Harvard students."

Dean Epps could not be reached for comment yesterday.