In the midst of a largely imaginary epidemic of grocery store shoplifting, this question has begun popping up again in social media posts. Is it illegal to eat food while shopping in a supermarket before paying for it? Some people make a habit of it and routinely open beverages to drink while shopping or snack on chips, etc., and present the empty package to the cashier during checkout. While opening packages and leaving them somewhere in the grocery store is clearly theft, what if you intend to pay for it?
Is Eating Grocery Store Food Before Paying Shoplifting?
Despite the insistence of many, there is no gray area here. Certainly, if you are in a diabetic crisis, for instance, and you must consume something immediately, then opening something in to eat or drink in the grocery store while you are shopping is a good idea. Still, most people do this for no good reason at all. They are simply hungry. However, it doesn’t matter why you do it. Eating grocery store food before you pay for it is illegal: It is shoplifting.
Until you pay for the item, it does not belong to you. When you consume an item without paying for it, you have stolen it. In the best of times, this would not be a big deal, since you are not leaving the store and you then present the opened package at checkout and pay for the item you consumed. But, these are not the best of times.
The Shoplifting Panic
While grocery store shoplifting rose a bit at the beginning of last year in some places, and there have been more cases of shoplifting in some places like New York, shoplifting has, like in past times, become a stand-in for an imagined breakdown in law and order.
We see stores placing locks on frequently stolen items, including high-end ice cream. We see heightened security in place. We even see stores closing and blaming shoplifting. So, now is not a good time to snack on unpaid food while shopping, or pop open a soda pop to enjoy while you roam the aisles. It has always been illegal but it was not likely that you would get in trouble for it. Today, you may find yourself on the wrong end of a shoplifting accusation, so do not do it. And, frankly, no one should be eating food in supermarkets that does not belong to them.
Is There A National Rise In Shoplifting?
As for that national shoplifting craze? It’s a bunch of baloney. According to this Vox piece, The National Retail Federation, a lobbying group for retailers, published a sensational report in April that likely helped fuel the current hysteria over shoplifting. The report claimed that in 2021, during the pandemic, American retailers lost $94 billion due to ‘organized retail crime.’
After it was revealed that losses due to shoplifting were not nearly that high, and that, in fact, U.S. cities had seen lower shoplifting rates in 2022 than in 2019, the National Retail Federation retracted its ridiculously exaggerated report.
Images and videos of brazen shoplifting, smashing of windows, etc. can easily make it seem as if shoplifting is out of control. But it’s all anecdotal. There is no evidence of a national rise in shoplifting, period. This is a political cause of the right and has a lot more to do with what is happening with our culture and economy right now than with actual thievery.
