Operators eat losses as more than guests walk out the door

Nation's Restaurant News,  Feb 10, 2003  by Milford Prewitt

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Kurtz says the man used two of the plates and napkins to fashion his own doggy bag for a slice of cake from a private party he had attended. From all appearances, Kurtz says, the guest believed that his impromptu form of carryout would not raise a single eyebrow by the staff.

"I said, 'Sir, I can take care of that for you and give you a proper package,'" Kurtz recalls. "But he was quite argumentative when I explained to him that if every customer walked out of here with plates and silverware, I'd go out of business."

Kurtz said it was those kinds of incidents that compelled the well-known special-occasion restaurant years ago to take its name off of its place settings and napkins to dissuade souvenir seekers from stealing. The restaurant still uses its stag logo, however, but without the name.

But that has not stopped guest thieves from taking the restaurant's hand-blown Christmas-tree decorations, which are valued at about $30 each. To stem their disappearance, restaurant officials order increasingly larger decorations each year and double-wire them to the limbs of two 14-foot trees.

Guest theft is not categorized easily. It's not shoplifting, since it generally does not involve purloined food or alcohol inventories. It's not burglary, since the criminals are not entering the premises illegally by breaking and entering. And it's not armed robbery, since rarely is a weapon or force used against another person.

"This is such a specialized kind of crime that I don't think anyone is watching it or measuring it," says Charles A. Sennewald, principal of Sennewald & Associates, a leading consulting firm in Escondido, Calif., that specializes in helping traditional department stores prevent robberies, shoplifting and employee theft.

"This may be totally new ground. I've never even thought of it until now," he adds.

Sennewald suggests that guest theft in restaurants may be minute in relation to the volume of employee shrinkage and shoplifting in retailing. He notes that general-merchandise retailers historically lose 1 percent to 2 percent of their inventories each year, with losses of 2 percent considered a serious problem. He adds that he doubts guest theft is anywhere near that severe.

In the National Retail Federation's annual security and theft update in 2001, the most recent year for which figures are available, retailers lost $32.3 billion to shrinkage and shoplifting. An NRF spokeswoman notes that restaurant-industry losses are not part of the survey.

Experts suspect that restaurant guest theft may be a grossly underreported crime, too.

Fear of higher insurance premiums, making a scene in the dining room, losing customers and alerting the general public to how easy it is to take things from restaurants compel many operators to keep mum on the subject.

Many operators also are dissuaded from making claims to insurance companies and law-enforcement authorities because of the relatively low cost of individual thefts. For instance, in New York state, grand theft larceny, a felony, cannot be charged until more than $1,000 in goods or merchandise has been taken. And even that amount is not enough to cover the deductible in many insurance policies or to compel the police to look for a perpetrator.