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Show Utah Declares War on Shop Lifters Hansen praised the new law as a "way to wage the war on shoplifting without creating creat-ing a new government agency or adding to government expenditures." ex-penditures." In the seminar Wednesday, Hansen detailed steps to be followed inusingthenewlaw, but he advised retailers to work out specific procedures with legal counsel. "One thing you ought to be sure of," he told store owners, own-ers, "is that you never attempt at-tempt to apprehend anyone without another store employee em-ployee present. That way, if a lawsuit should occur, you have a witness on your side." Basically the procedure Hansen recommended for store owners is as follows: When a merchant suspects someone of shoplifting (for example, if he sees a customer cus-tomer slip an item into a pocket or purse), he summons sum-mons another employee and the two approach the suspect. The merchant informs the customer that he is suspected suspect-ed of taking something wrongfully and asks if they can go to the store office to discuss the matter. The merchant, Hansen said, ought to avoid "making a scene" in the store, to make sure the suspect doesn't think he has grounds for a defamation suit. If the suspect will cooperate co-operate and go to the store office, the matter is settled there. If the suspect refuses to cooperate, the next step is for the merchant to call the police and let them take over. Once in the store office, the merchant takes the suspect's sus-pect's name, age, address and, if suspect is a minor, the parents are called to come to the store and nothing noth-ing is done until they arrive. Then the merchant explains ex-plains the new anti-shoplifting law and his rights and responsibilities under it. He ascertains whether the suspect sus-pect is really guilty. If he is, he may either take the case to court under the new law or attempt to make some out-of-court settlement with the suspect. "Most cases ought to be settled out of court," Hansen said. "First we ought not to overburden the court system when it has so many cases of more dramatic lawbreak-ing lawbreak-ing to contend with. Second, if the merchant has done his job well, the evidence will be so plainly overwhelming against the shoplifter that he will likely want to avoid court." "Utah has declared war on shoplifters," Utah Deputy Attorney General Robert B. Hansen said Wednesday, July 16. "And hopefully an increased in-creased awareness of the legal penalties for shoplifting shoplift-ing and the possible liability of the parents of shoplifters will deter this type of criminal crim-inal activity." Hansen spoke to a special gathering of store owners, security personnel and their attorneys in Salt Lake City. The meeting was sponsored by the Utah Council of Retailers Re-tailers and Wholesalers to inform store owners of their rights and responsibilities under Utah's new anti-shoplifting law. The two- m o n t h-old law enables shopkeepers for the first time to sue shoplifters for 'the price of the goods stolen, plus court costs, attorneys' at-torneys' fees and exemplary damages. The Utah bill was modeled after Nevada and Idaho statutes, Hansen said. Under the new law merchants mer-chants are also protected from civil suits for slander or invasion of privacy brought by customers who are detained or questioned because they are suspected of shoplifting. To detain suspected sus-pected shoplifters and still be protected against lawsuit, Hansen said, merchants must only have "reason to believe" an item has been pilfered. In addition, the Utah law makes parents responsible for the actions of their children who are caught shoplifting. Parents may be sued by merchants if they have not exercised "reasonable "reason-able care" to restrain their children from shoplifting, or if they fail to inform the merchant or law enforcement enforce-ment officials after they know what merchandise has been stolen by their children, chil-dren, according to Hansen. The Nevada and Idaho statutes stat-utes are even tougher, Hansen Han-sen said. In those states parents are responsible no matter what. Whether the courts will uphold the parental responsibility respon-sibility section of the law is unknown at present," Hansen Han-sen said. "Hopefully merely the knowledge of the existence exist-ence of the law will have a chilling effect upon the conduct con-duct of negligent parents." |