California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 10 bills into law on Friday to combat retail theft in a last-minute scramble to deal with rampant crime.
The bills raise penalties and fines for shoplifting, theft from a vehicle, organized theft and the resale of stolen goods.
The package follows the arrest of Michelle Mack, the so-called “Queenpin” behind a complex makeup theft crime ring called the “California Girls” that stole millions from cosmetic chain Ulta.
For critics of California’s relaxed penalties – which only jail shoplifters who steal more than $950 worth of goods – the move may be too little, too late.
Store owners have been calling on local and federal governments to take action to tamp down retail crime.
Commercial burglary and robbery rates in California have been growing over the past few years, according to Public Policy Institute of California data.
Shoplifting has been on a steady rise since 2021, the data showed.
Since January, the California Highway Patrol’s special retail crime task force has made nearly 900 arrests and recovered more than a quarter of a million stolen goods valued at more than $7.2 million, according to the governor’s press release.
Bill SB1416 enforces harsher sentencing for middlemen in organized crime rings – a direct response to Mack’s crime ring, according to State Sen. Josh Newman.
Prior to the bill, individuals charged with involvement in organized crime rings faced up to three years in prison – which critics said was not tough enough.
The bill extends this sentencing based on the value of the stolen goods. If a person sells, exchanges or returns stolen goods worth more than $50,000, for example, an additional year will be added to their sentence.
If a person resells more than $3 million worth of stolen goods, an additional four years will be added to their sentence.
The bill is a clear nod to the Ulta queenpin, who stole about $8 million worth of goods from Ulta and Sephora with her husband since 2012. Law enforcement found more than $300,000 worth of stolen goods at their $2.75 million mansion outside San Diego, according to prosecutors.
Mack – a 53-year-old mother of three young girls – was arrested in December along with her husband, who is already serving his sentence of five years and four months. Mack received a delayed sentence of the same length.
The couple was ordered to pay $3 million in restitutions to Ulta and about $13,000 to Sephora, according to CNBC.
At least nine others were charged in the elaborate scheme.
Mack and her husband stole from hundreds of stores across California, as well as stores in 10 other states.
Bill SB1144 also targets cases like Mack’s. The bill makes it easier for civil charges to be filed against online marketplaces reselling stolen goods.
Mack made her millions reselling the stolen Ulta and Sephora products on her Amazon store, which included beauty products, sunglasses and designer bags. The couple packaged the goods and shipped them from their garage.
They raked in $1.89 million from the online reselling scam in 2022 alone, according to Amazon sales records reported by CNBC.
Ulta Beauty CEO Dave Kimbell told CNBC earlier this year that the “financial impact” from organized retail theft “is real.”
“While some try to take us back to ineffective and costly policies of the past, these new laws present a better way forward – making our communities safer and providing meaningful tools to help law enforcement arrest criminals and hold them accountable,” Newsom said in a statement.
But it is unclear whether the laws will be enough to reverse the damage already done.
Shoplifting incidents in California jumped 29% in 2022 since 2019, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Commercial burglary soared 16% and robbery grew 13% in the same period, data said.
The Bay Area had the highest reported rates of retail crime and the biggest jumps since 2019, according to the data.
