Legislature sends clear signal to shoplifting thugs: Go for it!

Gov. Kathy Hochul was criticized by retailers for vetoing a bill that would have established a task force to combat organized retail theft. REUTERS

Shoplifting — including a major chunk by organized crews of dangerous criminals — cost New York’s retailers $4.4 billion in 2022, and will likely hit harder this year.

Yet the Legislature (as on every other cost imposed by our disastrous criminal justice “reforms”) has done next to nothing.

Literal billions of dollars stolen from retailers big and small alike across the Empire State, but the best our Albany overlords could do was a bill to create a task force to study ways of combating the scourge of organized retail theft rings.

As if there’s some mystery here.

And Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed the bill, as she has a host of similar “Set up a task force” measures.

The question now is: Will she push legislators to do something substantial?

This bill was a mere gesture to show New York voters, around 63% of whom see crime as a “very serious” problem, that their lawmakers “care,” but the actual signal is different, and brutally clear: Don’t you dare even think about organized shoplifting as a crisis.

Let alone hope for any actual law enforcement meant to stem it.

Or prosecutors who work to keep crooks off the street.

Or judges who don’t conspire to see thugs walk free.

Small wonder that the Big Apple is leading the nation in skyrocketing retail crime:The city saw a 64% jump in the number of reported incidents of retail theft between the start of 2019 and June 2023, beating out Los Angeles and Dallas for that dubious honor.

The lack of real action from New York’s leaders tells citizens that the state and its officers are unwilling — and increasingly unable — to protect them from lawbreakers.

It tells businesses that massive sums can be stolen from them (on top of New York’s already asphyxiating tax and regulatory environment) and no official will lift a finger to stop it — driving the mom-and-pops into the ground and the big guys to think about abandoning the city.

And it leaves every New Yorker in deadly danger, especially retail employees.

So: Will our governor fight to pass legislation that died this year to make assaults on retail workers felonies?

Or the also-sidelined bill to kick petit larcenies up to felonies if committed within two years of a prior conviction?

Until Hochul starts putting her energy and political capital behind moves like that, it’s public safety — and the Empire State’s lagging economy — be utterly damned.