STORY & PHOTO BY LEV D. ZILBERMINTS
NEWARK – Something very weird is happening at the Walgreens Pharmacy located at 561 Irvington Avenue, Newark. No shopping carts at all. Only one basket on wheels in the entire store. This meant that customers had to bring their own bags and shopping carts.
Halloween is more than three weeks away, so you can rule out “Mischief Night.” So, were the carts and baskets stolen? Where is Sherlock Holmes to solve this mystery? This is the sort of thing one would find in Weird New Jersey magazine or Odd News column on the Yahoo webpage.
When “Local Talk” arrived at the Walgreens store about 1:30 p.m. on October 8, the store looked largely deserted. There were no shopping carts at all. Only one basket on wheels in the entire store. The pharmacy where medication was prescribed was closed for lunch. It reopened at 2:00 p.m.
Only a single cashier was behind the register. There were less than ten customers in the entire store. Customer traffic picked up a bit by the time “Local Talk” left.
This particular location of Walgreens is popular with residents of Ivy Hill Park Apartments and the nearby Maplewood/South Orange area due to easy access to medication, food, school supplies, photo developing, computer – related parts, hearing aid batteries and other necessities. Usually there is a long line of customers at Walgreens.
What happened to the shopping carts and baskets on wheels?
The million-dollar question is, what happened to the shopping carts and baskets on wheels?
“Local Talk” asked around to find out what happened to the missing carts and baskets. A store employee explained where the carts and baskets went. According to the employee, customers took all the shopping carts and baskets on wheels. There was only one basket on wheels in the entire store.
The only shopping baskets left in the Walgreens store were the tiny ones in the beauty section. These were only large enough for one or two beauty products. Perhaps this would explain why these tiny baskets were left behind.
“Local Talk” checked out the parking lot outside Walgreens store. There was no sign of shopping carts or baskets on wheels.
Usually the store has a security guard. A sign by the entrance of the Walgreens stated, “Warning. This store is monitored 24 hours a day by an Interactive Security System.”
Yet another sign stated, “Video Surveillance in progress. Theft prosecuted at Walgreens.”
Technically, taking a shopping cart and not returning it could constitute stealing property. However, it would take a lot of effort and time to actually prove that the customer took the cart with malicious intent.
According to a 2020 post on Quora by Kai Williams, a former professional businesswoman, “…the carts aren’t worth enough to either the store or the police to make a fuss. After all, they’d have to prove the person with the cart is the one who stole it and didn’t just find it somewhere. So unless they catch the thief in the act, it’s probably not worth the time and effort.
You can buy a shopping cart online or in a big supply store for around $175 which means each cart probably costs big stores and grocery chains $50 or less each. Those losses are probably built into their operating costs anyway.”
There are many unanswered questions in this case. First, if there is video surveillance, then it should be a simple matter to review footage and pick out the images of people who took the shopping carts and baskets. So, is anything being done about this?
Second, in a departure from normal routine, there was no security guard on duty. From experience, “Local Talk” is aware of a security guard being around in the evening. That is when there are a lot of customers. So the question is, what happened to the security guard? Because the absence of the security guard would explain the ease with which shopping carts and baskets on wheels went missing.
Third, did management or higher-ups in the chain of command make some bad decisions concerning store safety? Fourth, will the shopping carts and baskets on wheels be replaced anytime soon?
