I recently noticed that two of the larger grocery stores in our relatively small tertiary market now have security guards that are packing heat. Is this getting to be a thing now?
Are the NRA’s dreams of armed guards at every school and retail portal coming true?
I routinely visit two local Kroger stores. One in my sketchy side of town and one over in a more affluent area. I recall a uniformed guard at the more dangerous location for well over a decade. I stopped visiting that store at night about six years ago. Several nearby fast food locations and a drug store were robbed. The grocery store’s parking lot is poorly lit. I only visit that grocery store now in the daytime. A shame because it’s only a 7 min drive from my home.
I was quite surprised to see a uniformed guard at the other Kroger store. IIRC he showed up about five or six years ago. Their parking lot is much better lit and I feel safe there even late at night. I’ve assumed there are more security elsewhere in the stores, watching the cameras.
But, some of the fast food places in that area have been robbed too. We had a string of armed fast food restaurant robberies a couple of summers ago. The same guys were hitting two or three places a week. They were finally caught and things quieted down. There’s really no, completely safe part of town anymore.
Is it getting to be a thing? I don’t know. Seems common in DC. And I saw them 10 years ago in New Haven. I don’t see them in El Paso.
It’s been a “thing” here for years.
Just try to separate a smaller portion from a bunch of grapes, and look out.
The guards will escort customers to their cars if asked. My wife has used that service several times at night.
Just don’t ask them to carry the groceries. LOL that would be pushing it.
Is there a bank in the grocery store too?
The Whole Foods I used to visit in Boston about 10 years ago had an armed guard.
I think what it is if a store hires a cheapo unarmed security guard you basically just getting a person making minimum wage who really wont do much to stop a robbery so they have to bump it up and hire one who is licensed to carry a firearm. I remember working as a security guard in college and there was no way I was going to put anything on the line for $4.50 an hour. I’ll watch an area and call the cops but that’s it.
The cheapest level of security service you can buy is “observe and report.” The guards are not allowed to intervene in any activity, but must simply report the activity. Getting involved will get them fired. If I recall correctly, there was a notorious case several years ago where a woman was being assaulted in a public place and she ran to a group of security guards for help. The guards just stood there and watched as her attackers caught up with her and viciously beat her. The guards were only there to “observe and report.”
They have police in some of the grocery stores and other places of business in St. Paul, in the sketchier parts of town (The Midway, it’s called).
Armed guards and/or police have been common around our stores for years now and at least one of our malls has its own police substation. And this isn’t just in the more lower class/higher crime areas; with our highways the bad guys have moved around enough to make it pretty much a general thing.
That could explain it.
The only time I’ve seen an armed guard at a grocery store (that I can recall) was a few years ago, at a Whole Foods in a wealthy St. Louis suburb.
I wonder about this, I work for an NPO and we help people find jobs, so we deal a lot with clubs and resturants and hotels and such. One thing I found interesting, is a hotel will hire off duty police officers as security, as well as “regular” security officers (for lack of a better word). The off duty police are in plain clothes but have guns, the other security officers are in plain clothes but do not.
When I was dining with the GM and H/R manager I asked and the GM said, “They like to carry their guns and it doesn’t matter to us if they want to or not.”
So I wonder if it’s something like that?
Sometimes the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a bun is a good guy with a gun.
You mean something like this?
I only see them when they are transferring cash to or from the store. But the armored car guards are armed too.
It’s probably far safer for a store just to give the cash to the robber than risking a shootout in a public area.
I waitress dropped a hot buttered bun on me once and I didn’t even think of shooting her.
One would think so but the store up the street figures its safer to keep an armed cop at the door so the bad guys go to the Giant Eagle and kill a few clerks here and there. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
(They closed and sold the store where the clerk was killed)
Yup, a lot of the guards are off-duty DC cops in uniform.
