‘Lawlessness': Victorian IGAs locking doors to avoid ‘swarming gangs' of machete-wielding youths

News.com.au

7 hours ago

Supermarkets in Victoria have taken to locking their doors out of fear of 'swarming gangs' of machete-wielding youths, who rove from store to store terrorising staff and customers while stealing cash, liquor and cigarettes — only be let out on bail the same day they're arrested.
Fred Harrison, chief executive of Ritchies Supermarkets, has blasted the Victorian government and 'soft' judges over the state's spiralling crime crisis, revealing shoplifting has doubled in the past three years to cost the retailer roughly $15 million annually.
'We've got stores in NSW and Queensland — touch wood, we haven't had one incident,' Mr Harrison told news.com.au on Thursday.
'The government has a lot to answer for. The fact that it's a Victorian-centric problem speaks volumes about the culture that's beginning to build. Unless the courts, government, police are going to take far more serious action, this is going to become a regular part of our life.'
CCTV footage obtained by news.com.au shows one such attack on Ritchies IGA Mount Waverley on June 1, 2024.
It shows a dark sedan reversing into a parking space outside the doors just before 8am.
Five youths, dressed in black and wearing hoodies, run into the store through the self-checkout area.
Two jump over the service counter in front of an elderly woman, who hurries away, as they grab cigarettes and cash. The others disperse through the store.
At one point a male customer enters the store and bravely squares off against the youths.
Shopping bag in one hand, he briefly scuffles with one before another menaces him with what appears to be a machete, while a third attempts to kick him in the head.
After about three minutes inside the store the youths run back out to their car and tear away through the carpark.
Ritchies operates 85 IGA stores nationally, mainly in Victoria, and employs more than 6000 staff.
Mr Harrison said his Victorian stores were being hit at least once a week, and 'at one stage it was happening a couple of times a week'.
'As recently as four weeks ago there were five hits on a Tuesday between 10am and 8pm,' he said.
'Originally it was more at night but of late it's this time of day [in the morning].'
Ritchies set up a WhatsApp group with around 50-60 Victorian stores in response to the attacks, which mainly occur in southeast Melbourne.
'We set it up because when these gangs strike, they rarely go after just the one store, they'll come out and hit four, five or six stores in a relatively short period,' Mr Harrison said.
'We try to stay ahead of the trouble. Sometimes if it's late at night, the stores involved will just close early. It's not good because you're impacting customers and staff, but for safety it's a decision we take. If we're a little bit further from the affected area we put a senior member of the team on the front door and basically allow people in one at a time.'
Mr Harrison said the 'swarming gangs' were 'generally youths aged anywhere between 12 and 18'.
'They will pull up near your store and then three, four, five people will jump out with bags,' he said.
'Invariably we've seen them with machetes or knives or weapons. They run into the stores as a group, terrorise the staff at the front, demand cash, cigarettes, if the liquor store is handy they'll load up expensive liquor.'
Staff had been 'pushed and punched', but Mr Harrison said luckily no one had been seriously injured yet.
'It causes a lot of stress and grief,' he said.
'We've had our people go on WorkCover as a consequence. It is so unfair to our team at a store level. Working in retail, it's hard to say, 'Come along and get terrorised at work, threatened with machetes put up to your face.''
Infuriatingly, the offenders are allegedly well known to police.
'I spoke with a police officer at our Mount Waverley store which was hit several times,' Mr Harrison said.
'Her commentary was, 'Fred, we know who they are, we know where they live. We will do the paperwork now then go around and arrest them and bring them in, but they will be back out on the streets this afternoon.' She said a lot of these youths have done it dozens and dozens of times.'
Mr Harrison said he was 'very critical of the government for the lawlessness that is almost allowed to exist' between the gangs and the 'slack bail laws'.
A Victorian government spokeswoman said in a statement that 'retail workers deserve to feel safe at work — that's why we continue to give Victoria Police the powers they need to crack down on offenders'.
'We will introduce tougher laws against assault of retail workers by the end of the year — the Worker Protection Consultation Group has already met and begun work on potential new penalties or offences for retail worker abuse, indecency and intimidation,' she said.
'Our tough new bail laws are already working to crackdown on serious and repeat offending — with remand numbers up. And now we have introduced Australia's toughest bail test for committing repeat armed robbery and aggravated burglary, as well a second strike rule for other serious offences like repeated theft above $2500.'
Shadow Police Minister David Southwick said businesses were 'adopting crime prevention measures because they have been abandoned by a soft-on-crime government that have run out of money'.
'Not enough police on the street. Weak bail laws that encourage repeat offending. It will never end until there is a change of government,' Mr Southwick said.
'Victoria is in a crime crisis and the only business booming is crime. Shoplifting, theft, aggravated burglaries and business firebombings are at record levels. It's unacceptable that employees are forced to lock their doors and hire extra security because thee government has failed to keep our community safe.'
On Wednesday, 774 ABC Melbourne presenter Richelle Hunt recounted how her husband had been shocked after visiting their local IGA and finding the doors locked.
'They were open but you had to knock and he had to get the attention of the owner inside to be let in, and it was only 6pm, it was still light,' Hunt told listeners.
'The owner said they're doing that now because they're worried about being robbed, and they often have young men and women who work there so they want to keep them safe. The whole experience was kind of surreal … [the owner] had to let the next customer in and then they had to lock the doors behind. It just made me feel really sad.'
In March, Victoria passed what Premier Jacinta Allan described as the 'toughest bail laws in the world' in response to growing community pressure.
At the time, Shadow Attorney-General Michael O'Brien argued the changes were 'weak' and failed to restore the bail laws to what they once were.
Victoria Police recorded a 17.1 per cent increase in criminal offences in the 12 months to March 31 — the highest since 2017 — according to the most recent figures from Crime Statistics Victoria.
The rate of youth offending surged 17.9 per cent in the same 12-month period, with 25,275 crimes committed by 10- to 17-year-olds. Crimes by 18- to 24-year-olds were up 16.5 per cent to 28,228.
'You hear stories they're tightening the legislation, but when they get into court in front of these soft judges they're getting slaps on the wrist and let out,' Mr Harrison said.
'One thing that's become clear to me is that the government has little respect for retail businesses in this state. Government has not reached out at any stage to sit down with people like myself.'
Sometimes the criminals are even more brazen.
'We had an instance at one of our supermarkets at Amberly Park [in Narre Warren],' Mr Harrison said.
'A white van turned up in the carpark, virtually parked at the front door. Out jumped five youths. We had one person in the liquor store. They said, 'Come near us we'll stab you.' They stole boxes of beer, bottles of spirits, loaded up the van and drove off.'
He estimated 'shoplifting has doubled in Victoria in the last two or three years'.
'We used to work on 0.5 per cent of sales [lost to] shoplifting,' he said.
'We think it's closer to 1 per cent these days. We turn over close to $1.5 billion. It's not exclusive to us, it's across the board. We're seeing more and more theft where people are running in and grabbing what they want, almost taunting you.'
Security guards, meanwhile, are forced to 'just watch'.
'The laws are we cannot apprehend, we cannot involve ourselves, we literally just watch,' Mr Harrison said.
'The thieves know this, they just take advantage and taunt us on the way out. We only wish one of the parties would come out strong on law and order [ahead of the state election next year]. It's so sad this government is allowing this to happen.'
Victoria banned the sale of machetes in May. From September 1, it will be illegal to own, use, carry, transport, sell and buy machetes in Victoria, without an exemption or valid approval.
The laws, which carry up to two years in jail or fines of more than $47,000, were rushed through following a spate of public incidents involving machetes across Melbourne.
Mr Harrison argued the problem was also being fuelled by the rampant illicit tobacco trade, now worth about $10 billion a year nationally.
'We're the good guys who have paid our company tax year on year, in our case for 155 years, while these clowns are just allowed to run rampant,' he said.
'What illicit tobacco is showing is you can make millions and millions of dollars and the penalties are that light that a lot of the hard dealers are now switching out of drugs into tobacco, because the consequences are next to nothing — it's a minimal fine.'
The 'biggest loser in all this is our staff, particularly casuals', he added.
'We run our business on a percentage of sales being the weekly wage budget, so when you lose, as we have, 10-20 per cent of your sales, we are then accordingly reducing our staff by 10-20 per cent,' Mr Harrison said.
'We've taken out in excess of $25 million we would have spent on wages [due to lost] legal tobacco sales.'
The Victorian parliament passed new tobacco laws in December, but the licensing scheme does not come into effect until February 1 next year.
'These illicit shops are trading right before our eyes, the police and members of parliament walk past them day and night, just bugger-all consequences,' Mr Harrison said.
'That sends a message to the shoplifters and thieves.'