Newsom Targets Retail Theft, Signs Bills with New Penalties, Enforcement Tools

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed a package of bills intended to crack down on organized retail theft.

Newsom, at a signing ceremony in a San Jose Home Depot, called the 10 bills “the most significant legislation to address property crime in modern California history.”

One of the bills, AB 3209, creates the first-of-its-kind Retail Crime Restraining Order, authorizing courts to impose it upon conviction, or following two or more citations, for a theft offense, vandalism within a store, or battery on a store employee.

AB 3209 – authored by Assembly members Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) and Robert Rivas (D-Salinas), who is also the Assembly Speaker – is a key provision in the Assembly’s bipartisan legislative package addressing retail crime and theft in California.

The new laws, Berman said, “were crafted with our partners in the retail and grocery industries provide Californians with smart and thoughtful solutions to reduce retail crime.”

AB 3209 was supported by Attorney General Rob Bonta, the California Retailers Association, the California Chamber of Commerce and the League of California Cities.

“This bill provides a new enforcement tool that will keep stores and workers safe from crime as rates of retail theft and robbery have risen in California,” said Rachel Michelin, president and CEO of the retailers association, adding that the law “will help safeguard our local businesses, protecting the livelihoods of hardworking employees and promote a safer and more prosperous retail shopping environment for all.”

The other bills in the package signed by Newsom target smash and grabs and car break-ins and theft,s while adding harsher penalties and sentencing enhancements for large-scale theft operations.

Recent trends in retail theft and commercial robberies vary throughout the state. The Bay Area had the highest reported rates of shoplifting in California in 2022. The legislature sought to address the issue of retail theft, as well as vandalism and assault on employees, by establishing a Select Committee on Retail Theft.

Last year, the California Highway Patrol reported an annual 310% increase in operations targeting organized retail crime, while special operations rolled out across the state to fight crime and improve public safety.

Since January 2024, the CHP’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force is on track to surpass its work in 2023, making 884 arrests and recovering more than a quarter of a million stolen goods valued at over $7.2 million.