Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and the NYPD announces the expansion of her retail theft initiative beyond the original three precincts that took part in the program pilot last spring.
File photo by Michael Dorgan
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and the NYPD announced the borough-wide expansion of her Merchants Business Improvement Program on Aug. 15. Piloted in Jamaica, Flushing and Astoria last spring, the initiative combats repeat shoplifting and the harassment and threatening of customers and store staff by a handful of repeat offenders responsible for many of the disruption to small businesses across Queens.
The program enhances safety for retailers as well as their customers and employees, according to the DA.
“The feedback from the merchants in the pilot programs has been very positive,” Katz said. “With the high rate of retail theft we are seeing throughout the city, it is absolutely essential that we keep fighting back. Expanding this program across the borough is an important part of that fight. We are not going to allow a small group of individuals to terrorize shop keepers, their employees and customers and to disrupt our local economy. We will not allow that to happen, because when our local businesses thrive, our communities thrive.”
Under her initiative, participating businesses contact police when an individual engages in disruptive, dangerous or illegal behavior in their establishment. The responding officers can issue a trespass notice and warn the individual that their return to the location could result in their arrest.
“The NYPD welcomes the expansion of this innovative program, which reinforces the deep collaboration between the Police Department and the office of Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz,” Assistant Chief Kevin Williams, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Queens South, said. “It’s an initiative that activates the best of our intelligence-driven policing strategies to further reduce crime…
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