California Governor Newsom Signs 10 Retail Theft Bills Into Law
Governor Gavin Newsom and other California state officials announced the official signing of a historically robust package of bills targeting retail theft on Friday morning.
At a press conference at a Home Depot in San Jose, the bills’ authors, along with retail and law enforcement groups, gathered to commemorate the remarkable passage of 10 bills that address multiple facets of retail crime.
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From instituting new penalties for stealing with the intent to resell to regulating online marketplaces being used for fencing schemes, allowing for the aggregation of charges across retailers and jurisdictions, implementing higher penalties for repeat offenders, and eliminating the statute of limitations for prosecuting organized retail theft, the newly minted laws were designed to bolster the state’s response to retail and property crimes, the governor said.
“These bills will strengthen existing laws. They’ll enhance other laws, and they will address the challenges that are well outside the purview of previous initiatives and laws like Prop. 47—and that’s the issue of organized retail theft, the issue of theory serial theft, the issue that is front and center in the consciousness of so many Californians,” he added.
The state’s problems with rising retail theft have been well-documented in recent years. The world’s fifth largest economy plays a massive role in generating commerce, and that’s made it a prime target for crime.
While aware that constituents—and the nation—are scrutinizing his handling of the issue, Newsom has been circumspect when it comes to reforming laws like Prop. 47, which established a felony threshold of $950 for property crimes like shoplifting. The ballot initiative was passed by an overwhelming 71 percent of voters in 2014, but a decade later, many are questioning whether it’s made criminals more brazen.
Newsom and other state officials, from Assemblymembers to State Senators who believe Prop. 47 has been an essential tool in addressing mass incarceration and social inequity, are hoping that the passage of wide-ranging, tough-on-crime legislation this week will tamp down efforts to reform the law.
Newsom said Friday that $1.1 billion in resources have been invested in fighting crime since 2019, including $267 million last year that was earmarked for organized retail theft in particular. “We’ve been working vertical prosecution investigations. We’ve been working on advancing and enhancing technology to address the issue of retail theft,” he said. According to data from the California Highway Patrol (CHP), 884 arrests have been made in 2024 alone.
Assemblymember Mark Berman (D-Palo Alto) thanked the governor, along with speaker of the California State Assembly Robert Rivas, president pro tempore of the California State Senate Mike McGuire, and members of the public safety and business communities, for supporting the package, which included a bill he authored. AB 3209 creates a first-of-its-kind retail crime restraining order for theft, vandalism or battery of an employee within a store.
“We all came together as a team to try to draft thoughtful policies to address the retail theft and crime surge that we have in California in recent years; the Bay Area has experienced the largest increase in shoplifting rates in California,” he said. “San Mateo County, which is one of the counties that I represent, saw shoplifting rates increase 53 percent between 2019 and 2022, but this isn’t just happening in the Bay Area. The rise in retail theft, in crime is a growing issue throughout California.”
State Senator Nancy Skinner also applauded the legislature and the governor for passing her bill, SB 1144, which will require online marketplaces to verify that products sold by high-volume third-party sellers were procured or acquired for sale legally.
President and CEO of the California Retailers Association (CRA) Rachel Michelin praised lawmakers for taking the perspective of retailers into account when crafting the new set of laws.
“This package is going to be instrumental in curbing retail theft and organized retail crime in California, and this is why this package of bills came from retailers,” she said. “I came to leadership and I said, ‘Here is what we need to help us curtail this happening in our stores.’ And they listened, and we worked together—we worked collaboratively.”
“All of these things in this package are going to help retailers, law enforcement and district attorneys be able to provide the consequences for these behaviors,” Michelin added. “Retailers have never been about mass incarceration or that type of mentality. We’ve always wanted to be part of the solution.”
Michelin praised Newsom as “our greatest advocate for years now on retail theft, and organized retail crime, when we have needed his help.” She said the investments made in CHP and organized retail crime task forces across the state have been a subject of calls from retail groups across the country looking to tackle crime in a similar manner.
“Time and time again, the people of California have been loud and clear that organized retail crime is a top priority and a top concern. They are worried. They are fed up and they want and are demanding solutions,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta when he took his place at the lectern.
“This is the collective leadership of California saying, we agree, we hear you. We’re fed up, and we are delivering solutions.”
“The tools that these bills provide will provide for more cracking down on organized retail crime, more accountability, more people being brought to justice,” he added. “And so I think the collective message is clear, if you ransack our stores, if you attack our people, if you endanger our communities, we will come for you.”
Speaker Rivas and president pro tempore McGuire have been credited with pushing the package across the finish line in recent weeks, fast-tracking its progress through the legislature and delivering it to Newsom’s desk on Monday.
“These new laws—they give our cities, they give our counties, courts and law enforcement the tools that they need to clean up our streets and to keep stores safe from theft,” Rivas said. “And getting here, as has been emphasized, it was not easy, but it was urgent.”
“I heard it loud and clear from my colleagues, constituents, residents all across California: they’re tired of the shocking smash-and grabs. They’re tired of products in our retail stores being locked up,” he added. “They want law abiding citizens, not criminals, to make the rules. So I acted quickly to create this Assembly Committee on Retail Theft, with assembly members, both Democrats and Republicans, who came together on this from all across our state, representing all parts of our state.”
“We’re giving Californians the laws that they rightfully deserve—and let’s be candid, have been asking for,” McGuire echoed. “The new laws that the governor will be signing today will increase penalties on organized retail theft, advance strategic enhancement on stolen goods, both online as well as those that are stolen from mom-and-pop shops in every corner of the state.”
With more than a dozen proponents of the legislation behind him as he signed the bills into law, Newsom almost certainly viewed the occasion as a chance for a victory lap. But following the conclusion of prepared remarks, the scene quickly devolved, with Newsom forced to defend his stance on maintaining Prop. 47.
The issue has divided Democrats in the state, with San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan skipping the signing ceremony in his hometown in a show of support for Prop. 36, the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, which has gained traction in recent months and is headed to the polls in November. San Francisco Mayor London Breed is also a proponent of the proposal, which would increase jail time for certain drug- and property-related crimes.
Asked about their absence and their public stances, Newsom called the politicians “exceptions” within the party. “It’s just a couple members, a couple mayors.”
However, a poll released last week by the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times showed that 56 percent of Californians support the measure.
“That initiative has nothing to do with retail theft,” Newsom said of Prop. 36, which takes a hard line stance on drug offenses in addition to upping sentences for property crimes. “This has everything to do with retail theft. That initiative is about going back to the 1980s and the war on drugs. It’s about mass incarceration.”
“I hope folks take the time to really reflect on it,” he said. “I want to move this state forward. I don’t want to move us backwards.”
But Prop. 47, which has waned considerably in popularity, isn’t just a referendum on Newsom. Recently, Vice President Kamala Harris has come under fire from Republicans for her role in championing the ballot initiative when she served as California’s attorney general.
On Thursday, former President Donald Trump jumped on the bandwagon. “I didn’t know this, but you’re allowed to rob a store as long as it’s not more than $950,” Trump said at a press conference at his New Jersey golf club, according to Politico. “You have thieves going into stores with calculators calculating how much it is, because if it’s less than $950 they can rob it and not get charged.”
“That was her that did that,” he said of Harris, adding that she and Newsom “destroyed California” with the policy.
Newsom hit back at the accusation Friday. “You have some guy, ex-president, yesterday talking about it,” he said of the Prop. 47 felony theft threshold. “It’s the 10th toughest in America, and I don’t see that represented in most of the news.”
“Those that support Prop. 36—they’ll be accountable for it. I wouldn’t want to be on their side of this. Watch what happens the next couple years,” he added. “It’s such a devastating setback in this state; the impact on poor folks, impact on black and brown communities—it’s next level, and it doesn’t address what they’re saying.”
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