Serious steps are being taken in the center of Emmen towards a collective shopping ban. With this medicine, shopkeepers can act together against multipliers and nuisance providers. Supermarket manager Rob Michielsen from the Albert Heijn in Emmen expects the ban there will be within a few months.
With a collective shop ban, retailers can keep people who repeatedly cause nuisance or commit a criminal offense.
The idea of a collective shopping ban was received positively earlier this month by entrepreneurs in the center area, says Michielsen. “We recently talked about it in a meeting with other retailers. Many experienced nuisance, but so far there was no possibility of acting as a collective. Now we are finally going to organize that.”
Michielsen expects that dozens of entrepreneurs can be started at the same time. The initiative is now further prepared after a consultation between the local Albert Heijn (the driver in this story), the center manager, the local police officer, a safety adviser of Ahold and the Center for Crime Prevention and Safety (CCV).
The CCV is an expertise center that draws up protocols for collective shopping bans. There is already such a system in various cities, but for Drenthe this would be the first collective ban.
An important step in the preparation is to waterproof the system legally. Previous initiatives were stranded due to privacy legislation. “You are not allowed to share photos of shoplifters without permission, and that makes it difficult to know as an entrepreneur with whom you are dealing with.”
The collective store ban that is now being rolled out does meet the rules. Entrepreneurs who participate will have access to a secure app from the CCV, in which photos and data from nuisance pendators can be shared. “Every participant receives a sticker on the shop window with the message that his case is part of the collective shop ban. If someone who has such a ban still enters, that is a house breach. Then we will immediately call in the police.”
And in terms of punishment it immediately becomes different. There is a maximum prison sentence of one year on a house breach.
According to the entrepreneurs involved, the collective ban is desperately needed. Supermarkets in particular have to deal with shoplifting and nuisance daily. “They are public spaces where thousands of people come together a week. You have to deal with pickpockets, ranging groups of young people, sometimes verbal or physical violence. A collective approach is then more effective than everyone. Look, a student who takes something for 4 euros, gets a warning and a temporary ban. But the people who have been structurally we have hundreds of euros”
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