H o w i c k & Pa k u r a n g a
LIBRARY SITE DEVELOPMENT AWARD-WINNING VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY – NZCNA Thursday, April 27, 2023
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Vol 52, No 16
SENIOR CITIZEN: ‘BUY YOUR OWN FOOD’ A TIME TO REMEMBER Robyn Chapman with grandchildren Lydia and Malachi Wachter stand in rememberance at the cenotaph on Stockade Hill following the Howick RSA Dawn Service. The children’s greatgreat-grandfather, Eddie Chapman, served in WWII in a Lancaster Bomber squadron. After being shot down over Germany, he was taken prisoner, spending his 21st birthday in a prison camp. He turns 100 on June 13.
By CHRIS HARROWELL
A
nger is growing in east Auckland at the actions of brazen thieves who fill supermarket trolleys with groceries and walk out without paying. Multiple posts have appeared on community Facebook pages from witnesses to such behaviour in recent weeks. One was from a person who said they saw a man with a “trolley load of corned beef” walk out of a local Countdown supermarket without paying. The poster said they were “so over this entitled behaviour” and “crime is out of control in Auckland”. Another recent post was by a person who saw three people, one of whom was wearing a balaclava, who “loaded up a trolley each” at a local Countdown before walking out without paying. When the supermarket’s staff tried to stop the thieves, they were “verbally abused and threatened”, the post said. The Times has spoken to a shopper who believes she was present when two young women recently walked out of another local Countdown without paying. The senior citizen, who wishes to remain anonymous, says she entered the supermarket behind the pair who appeared to be aged in their late teens or early 20s. She says they walked up and down various aisles putting groceries into a trolley. “When I got to the checkout, the operator and a couple of other cus-
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tomers were talking. One of them said, ‘they do that all the time, they do that once a week’. “Somebody else asked, ‘what are they doing about it?’, and I asked if it was those two girls. “The checkout operator said, ‘yes, we know them, they come in here every week and do exactly the same thing, they fill their trolley and they just walk through a checkout and go’.” The woman says she finds it “repugnant” that people would fill a trolley with food and walk out of a supermarket without paying. “As a senior citizen who’s living on a pension, I think it’s a disgrace. “These are young people who have the ability to hold down a job. “Get out and work and buy your own food.” She wants to see more done to prevent people from stealing from supermarkets in such a brazen manner. “I understand the supermarket is nervous about retaliation, like their staff being attacked, but if it’s happening on a weekly basis surely some measures could be put in place, such as a screen or roller doors coming down. The police should be arresting them and charging them with theft because that’s what they’re doing, they’re stealing food.” A spokesperson for Countdown says the safety and well-being of its team and communities is its “absolute priorities”. “There are a number of measures we have in place in our stores that are designed with this in mind. Continued on page 5
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