Washington bill aims to help businesses impacted by retail theft

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state senators have introduced a senate bill this legislative session that aims to focus on retail theft and business assistance.

SB 5259 is summarized as, “ensuring commerce and workplaces are safe from product theft,” and aims to create a retail theft task force and help businesses with security expenses through a tax break. The bill has been introduced and referred to the Senate Ways & Means Committee.

The text of the substitute bill states, “The legislature finds that the safety of our retail commerce and our retail workforce are threatened by increased product theft. Washington retailers are estimated to have lost $2,700,000,000 to organized retail crime in 2021. Federal crime statistics show that the number of assaults in retail establishments increased at a faster pace than the national average between 2018 and 2020.”

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The bill aims to help retail businesses, and those in the cannabis industry by providing relief to retailers who have had to boost security to prevent theft at establishments. Cannabis shops in Washington state are a cash-only industry, which makes them a big target.

Included in the bill are plans to establish an "organized retail theft task force" to help improve coordination between law enforcement agencies and increase required safety measures to help protect retail workers.

On Wednesday, Seattle Citywide Councilmember, Sara Nelson told KOMO that she is following the bill closely and waiting to see what happens to the legislation.

“While I am still weighing my options at the city level, I’ve been actively following SB 5259,” Nelson told KOMO saying she “plans to reach out directly to lawmakers in Olympia to urge them to pass it. If it passes, we intend to see how the City can act to complement/expand the legislation to help small businesses.”

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“It’s a great sign that they’re listening," Matt Humphrey, owner of Steele Barber and Spa in Ballard said of the senate bill. "We’ve been shouting from the roof tops, especially me.”

“Being a small business owner, the biggest obstacles are funding to do things that you’re never prepared for, that you never thought you’d be spending for,” Ocean Greens said who runs his cannabis store in North Seattle.

After an armed robbery where employees were hurt and he lost thousands of dollars, Greens spent more money to increase the security of his store.

If passed, the bill would help retailers with a tax break when they spend $3000 or more on security improvements, according to the bill’s main sponsor Senator Karen Keiser, who represents portions of southwest King County.

Keiser said it “also provides training and provides employee intervention protections.”

The bill expands the retail theft task force, created last year by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

“The current task force is simply a meeting of people and interests," Keiser said. "They have no statutory existence. This will make It real, incorporate it into law, and give it real authority.”

However, Humphrey had one sticking point with the legislation.

“I think the real challenge is, you’ve got to make sure that the crimes that are happening are being prosecuted,” Humphrey said. “Otherwise it’s a fantastic band-aid, and then it puts the burden back on me to do my own policing.”

“This is not a criminal kind of justice type of bill,” the senator said. “This is a ‘what we can do on the civilian side.’ I would agree that there has to be a prosecution.”

Keiser went on to say, “this bill is focused on prevention because if we can harden these stores, so the criminals do not have an easy path in and out, with a ton of merchandise in hand, or a shopping cart, that will reduce a lot of the ongoing organized crime.”

“We will need to get this bill to the floor of the senate before March 5,” she said, adding that there is not a lot of time left for this legislation to have a successful path forward.