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Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

economist.com

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Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#311

Post by prvit »

ryan_lane wrote: post #180
subradios wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulating legitimate business activity out of existence to support progressive prosecutors ideas about shoplifting and street crime is the opposite of a solution.

Knowing your suppliers and that their goods are legitimate is a pretty basic function of a business, and calling people progressive to enforce that is a bit strange. Amazon isn't a pawn shop. They have a lot of choice when it comes to dealing with known businesses.

>Knowing your suppliers and that their goods are legitimate is a pretty basic function of a business

No it isn’t. That’s a pretty basic part of living in a country with rule of law.

>calling people progressive to enforce that is a bit strange

Indeed, it’s strictly regressive.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#312

Post by Macha »

kjeetgill wrote: post #204
quag wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Most Americans do not live in bit cities" comment caught my eye. I wasn't sure if it was true or not, so I ran some numbers. Using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistic... Assuming 331M people in the USA, 164M (50%) live in a metropolitan area of at least 1.6M people. 189M people (57%) live in an area with at least 1M people. 230M (70%) live in an area with at least 500K people. My conclus…

I'm not sure how to consider the stats you're using here. Metropolitan areas aren't cities, the whole reason for the term is to include not just adjacent suburbs, but whole adjacent cities to major urban cities. Do we really consider an hour away and for cities over living in San Francisco?

I mean, from a European perspective who has been to the bay area semi-often, SF - San Mateo - Redwood City - Palo Alto - Mountain View - Santa Clara - San Jose is pretty clearly a continuous urban area and the fact that the subdivisions are considered separate towns and cities more an anomaly of historical origins and local government setup rather than something you would decide working from the definition of town or city.

In Europe, places that have been swallowed up by urban sprawl like that usually stop being called as such given time - no one persists in calling Chelsea, Charlton or Westminster cities now they're well inside the London urban area, and I suspect the same will happen to bay area towns and cities over the next 200 years unless it undergoes a significant population decline.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#313

Post by nkrisc »

mancerayder wrote: post #111
nkrisc wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real reason is mentioned I the article: it’s absurdly easy to sell bulk stolen goods online. As long as that’s possible, there will always be someone stealing it, no matter how many people you lock up.

That sounds like we're pointing to an external force (the ease of selling stolen goods online), as if it were some sort of magnetic draw, an irresistible temptation. What's tempting is that there's a lack of punishment. Do you propose we lecture to thieves to dissuade them? It's like arguing people run red lights because they get distracted due to phone notifications and so maybe we shouldn't punish them with points…

> Do you propose we lecture to thieves to dissuade them?

No.

> as if it were some sort of magnetic draw, an irresistible temptation.

The shoplifting itself is committed by individuals and individual cases of shoplifting should be a reasonably light punishment. It’s not murder.

But a single person is not shoplifting $300,000 worth of merchandise. There’s two culprits: the ease of selling vast quantities of stolen items and from which follows the organized crime rings that facilitate it.

If you want to stop it, you need to crack down on both the fences (eBay, Amazon, etc.) and the organizers of these shoplifting sprees. Sure, punish the shoplifters too, but going after them won’t end it - there will always be someone in need of easy cash who can be recruited in their place.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#315

Post by nradov »

bombcar wrote: post #229
lupire wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to block counterfiets and fencing, we need a verifiable chain of custody.

Or just a database of serial numbers .

A database of serial numbers alone wouldn't be sufficient. Counterfeiters frequently copy real serial numbers and print them on fake products.

There are more effective means such as tamper resistant RFID tags, but those aren't cost effective for cheap items. And often no one bothers to check anyway.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#316

Post by lostlogin »

lisper wrote: post #211
notch656a wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it illegal to sell deodorant you got from the store after they put a tag on it?

Of course not. But it is really hard to turn a profit reselling a product you purchased at retail.

Scalping deodorant as a startup?

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#317

Post by public_defender »

bhk wrote: post #294
public_defender wrote: post #159

Expert in stolen goods here. I was talking to a NYC colleague the other day about how there are trends in favor of not punishing people for certain criminal activity in the city. We were talking about driving with a suspended license, but I asked about shoplifting. She said, "Oh, no. That's on the opposite trend. Not only are they prosecuting it to the maximum, but they just changed the law to make it easier to hold…

This is clearly not true. > Manhattan D.A. Acts on Vow to Seek Incarceration Only for Worst Crimes > The district attorney, Alvin Bragg, told prosecutors in his office in a memo that they should ask judges for jail or prison time only for the most serious offenses — including murder, sexual assault and economic crimes involving vast sums of money — unless the law requires them to do otherwise. https://www.nytimes.com…

It clearly is true. I can actually watch it happen. You can too, if you go to arraignments in NYC. The line ADAs have no discretion to dismiss petit larceny (shoplifting) at arraignment. They need supervisor approval. There are other cases like driving under suspension (VTL 511 -- mentioned in GP) where they do have this discretion. There is a reason for the difference, which is that petit larceny is a priority.

Also, the DAs supported the "harm over harm" amendment to bail reform (CPL 510.10(4)t) for the explicit purpose of seeking bail in repeat shoplifting cases. And can you guess how they're using it?

You are conflating DA public statements with actual operational policy. It is nothing new that DAs claim to prioritize things that are not on their roadmaps.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#318

Post by prvit »

ALittleLight wrote: post #165
nostromo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming Amazon is misplaced. Blame the people stealing and the system that refuses to prosecute them.

But also blame Amazon. If you ran a store that repeatedly sold stolen goods do you think local police and prosecutors would ignore you? Trafficking in stolen property is a felony. That's true whether you definitely know it's stolen property or if you definitely should have known (recklessly trafficking). You, if you repeatedly did it out of your small business and ignored complaints, would face prison. Why does the l…

>If you ran a store that repeatedly sold stolen goods do you think local police and prosecutors would ignore you?

Yes, if you operated your business in a way similar to Amazon the cops and prosecutors would in fact almost certainly ignore you.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#319

Post by mancerayder »

brutusborn wrote: post #212
mancerayder wrote: post #72

What's amazing is how no one is honing in on the real reason this is happening, the DA's office combined with state laws make it hard to bail people and send people to prison. That's the decision made, and it's referred to as the carceral system. It's something viewed as urgently needing reform, and that's how the progressive DA's operate. Look at Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA's program ( https://www.manhattanda.org/…

I wish that DA had added some references to the studies that support less incarceration. It just doesn't make sense to me, he admits that Manhattan is the worst burrough for crime, then states that it is over incarcerating. How does one determine that? Also he mentions social programs as an alternative to incarceration, but are these programs actually available? The crime rate suggests they are not, so reducing incar…

>It just doesn't make sense to me, he admits that Manhattan is the worst burrough for crime, then states that it is over incarcerating. How does one determine that?

It's tied in this foundational belief (and it's mentioned as one of the points) that incarceration leads to more recidivism. How one can reach this conclusion by taking overall violent crime stats into account (also all but one out of seven felony types are up in NYC) requires some logical legwork.

The fact that increases of petty crime and increases of serious crime are both happening yearly should be a red flag that makes us question the policy decisions, which again are based on not 'over policing' or 'over incarcerating'. It could be the two are connected, but you'd be accused of Broken Windows Theory.

It's hard not to see a general chaos as being contributing. The plexiglass seems like a symbol of that to many people.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#320

Post by pclmulqdq »

bombcar wrote: post #232
lupire wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing that a corpo can get away with "lack of assistance" when it is participating in a crime syndicate. Imagine if you or I tried that.

Plausible deniability and more lawyers than God helps.

God probably doesn't have a lot of lawyers, but Amazon has more lawyers than Satan, too.
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