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Theft falls off at city Liquor Marts

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It was 2019, and thieves and robbers were routinely targeting city Liquor Marts, storming the front doors and filling bags with bottles of alcohol.

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It was 2019, and thieves and robbers were routinely targeting city Liquor Marts, storming the front doors and filling bags with bottles of alcohol.

Sometimes they were armed. Sometimes they were violent.

Evan O’Brien remembers showing up to work and not knowing whether he would be threatened, attacked or verbally abused that day.

“It was a tense, tense time,” O’Brien said last week, speaking inside the Liquor Mart at Portage Avenue and Burnell Street, where he works as a manager and has witnessed many such crimes.

“I became a go-to counsellor… Instead of me taking time, showing somebody how to be better at their jobs and advance, I was in the back, helping people through what they just saw.”

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Store manager Evan O’Brien says theft has been drastically reduced at the Portage and Burnell Liquor Mart.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS

Store manager Evan O’Brien says theft has been drastically reduced at the Portage and Burnell Liquor Mart.

Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries introduced controlled entrances to urban stores in 2020, largely halting thefts and robberies. Five years have passed, and while many retailers remain besieged by crime, new data shows secure entrances continue to keep most criminals at bay.

“It’s night and day, there is no comparison,” O’Brien said of the change. “Now, are we perfect with no theft? Of course not. But, it’s that old-school, shove a bottle down your pants and try to get away with it kind of thing. It’s not what it used to be, it’s not setting off everybody’s anxieties.”

According to data obtained via a freedom of information request, the Crown corporation experienced 1,491 thefts during the last fiscal year (April 1, 2024-March 31). That’s a decrease of 90 per cent, compared to the 15,557 incidents recorded between the same period in 2019 and 2020.

Robberies, which are classified separately because they involve threats or violence, peaked at 232 that year. Those have also plummeted — dropping to just 10 over the most recent fiscal year, the data shows.

The Crown corporation operates 63 locations across the province, and last year averaged less than two thefts per month, per store. In total, 10 robberies occurred throughout that period.

When incidents peaked in 2020, the average was nearly 247 thefts and four robberies per month, per store.

If the trend holds, Manitoba liquor stores could see fewer than five robberies occur before the end of the year, Shawn McGurk, director of corporate security, said in an interview last week.

“These types of numbers are actually considered very good in today’s retail crime environment,” McGurk said, speaking from his office on Pacific Avenue.

“Before we installed the controlled entrances, our Liquor Marts were, literally, under siege…. Our store staff were scared to come to work, it was a terrible scene.”

McGurk, who led the Manitoba liquor stores through the security crisis, called it “the most difficult time” in his roughly 30-year career.

“In order to protect our staff and our customers that are shopping, I mean, we had to do this.”

He spent many sleepless nights — and the Crown corporation spent many thousands of dollars — trying to find a solution. Early attempts included locking up certain products and replacing some that were normally on store shelves with cardboard cutouts, deploying loss prevention officers and hiring special-duty police officers at huge cost, he said.

When MBLL settled on introducing secure entrances, it seemed like a drastic but necessary step, McGurk said.

“In order to protect our staff and our customers that are shopping, I mean, we had to do this.”

Some customers have levelled complaints about the entrances, but McGurk said the overall response has been positive.

An annual internal customer satisfaction survey, conducted during the most recent fiscal year and including responses from 1,187 people, found 85 per cent feel safer because of the controlled entrances. Of those, 82 per cent said they support their use.

Kyle Ross, president of Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, which represents Liquor Mart workers, said the move has the support of his membership, as well.

“As a union, we fought really hard to get these doors,” Ross said. “The places that have them love them, and the places that don’t have them are asking, ‘When can we get these doors?’”

Ross said he would like to see secure entrances installed in Liquor Marts located in rural Manitoba, warning “theft doesn’t just reside in the larger centres.”

McGurk said a secure-entrance working group meets monthly to review all incidents, customer complaints, staff concerns and crime trends affecting all Liquor Mart locations, including those in rural areas. At this point, there is no indication of increased crimes affecting rural areas, he said.

While secure entrances have proven effective, the group is constantly refining security measures at various stores. If they track a spike in incidents, they may temporarily deploy security guards to select locations. Gathering footage from surveillance cameras and identifying prolific offenders is also a priority, he said.

“While you do not see this type of security in liquor stores across other parts of Canada, there has been no doubt about the effectiveness of the secure entrances at Manitoba Liquor Marts,” John Graham, the Retail Council of Canada’s government relations director for the Prairies, said in a statement.

“Theft doesn’t just reside in the larger centres.”

Graham, who sits on a provincial committee tasked with addressing high levels of retail crime in Manitoba, noted secure entrances are not a viable solution for most other retailers.

“This approach is costly and can be frustrating for some customers, but as a monopoly (Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries is) in a unique position to enact such a high level of entrance security.” he said.

“Retailers have preferred to focus on securing high-risk items within a store, rather than creating a barrier to entry into the entire business.”

While the Crown corporation was not able to immediately provide financial data, McGurk said the cost of adding secure entrances has significantly reduced overall security costs.

— with files from Nicole Buffie

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

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