STORES Magazine - September 2008 - (Page L10)

COVER STORY TRIAL, ERROR – AND SUCCESS L obbying has acquired an unsavory reputation in recent years, but the truth is lobbyists are the people who make things happen in capitals around the country. Atlanta is no exception. This year, retailers in the Peach State were successful in lobbying for amending the Official Code of Georgia relating to theft. “It was a learning experience for us,” says John Heavener, president of the Georgia Retail Association. “This was GRA’s first foray into the whole issue of criminal law.” The effort began more than 18 months ago, when retailers in the state began pushing for legislation dealing with organized retail crime. “We went to the Judiciary Committee [in 2007], but we got no traction there,” Heavener recalls. This year, GRA targeted Ways & Means Committee chairman Larry O’Neal. “When we told him organized retail theft was costing Georgia retailers $882 million a year and the state of Georgia $35 million in lost taxes, we got his attention,” Heavener says. O’Neal recognized that ORC is “more than a harmless property crime” and agreed to sponsor the bill. There was more to the retailers’ lobbying effort than that, however. “We had an immediate push back from the prosecutors,” Heavener says. “There was a lot of back and forth, but finally the prosecutors got behind it and it was passed on the second-to-last day of the session.” Winning over the prosecutors was the key to getting the legislation passed,” Heavener says. “We brought them into it and sought their input.” Retailers didn’t get everything they were seeking, he says. In particular, “we wanted more aggressive language, but we worked it out so the prosecutors got some of what they wanted,” too. There were some other snags, such as legislators’ concerns that the bill was aimed at “eBay and other auction sites right here in Georgia,” Heavener says. “We had to convince them that they were not being targeted specifically, but it could be used against them if a prosecutor wanted to go in that direction.” One of the major provisions of the bill was the adoption of a 90-day period where thefts could be aggregated in order to make the crime a felony. Getting the bill adopted was a collective effort, and Heavener cites Walmart, Walgreen, Macy’s and local furniture retailer L.A. Waters as being particularly active in the process. legislation and existing shoplifting and larceny laws are sufficient to address retailers’ concerns about ORC. Kresevich says opponents of ORC legislation in Ohio, where Luxottica is based, point to “laws already on the books that deal with shoplifting. And when retailers bring up the sophistication and organization employed by organized thieves, [lawmakers say] there are corruption statutes and grand larceny statutes and plenty of other statutes to deal with it. That may be,” she says, “but it’s not adequately handled.” One problem with using existing law is “the different level of proof, different standards,” Kresevich says. More than a dozen states have enacted laws addressing organized retail crime, and a handful of others were considering similar bills even as the legislative season wound down in advance of the November elections. But ORC is only one of many legislative topics of particular interest to retail LP efforts. Another is identity fraud, where legislation is geared toward protecting the public from having their personal information stolen and holding the people who steal it accountable. Idaho adopted such a measure earlier this year; a similar proposal failed in California. Negative legislation ometimes it is in retailers’ best interests to oppose certain bills. One example of “negative legislation” involves proposals calling for the elimination of expiration dates on gift cards or requiring specific practices and procedures for posting information regarding expiration dates. Consumer advocacy groups argue that gift cards are paid for and, like cash, should have no expiration date, but “there’s not a retailer with gift cards who supports that notion,” Viljoen says. Retailers don’t want to carry the outstanding value on the books indefinitely and counter that there are deadlines and expiration dates on many things that have currency value, from manufacturer coupons to lottery tickets. Despite these sentiments, Michigan governor Jennifer M. Granholm this summer signed into law a requirement that retailers honor gift cards and gift certificates for at least five years. Another example of negative legislation deals with consumer privacy, the type which mandates that website operators and companies with databases housing customers’ personal identification information disclose whether they have shared that information with third parties. Such a bill was adopted by the Minnesota legislature, and two different bills dealing with the subject were considered in Michigan. A variation dealing with security breaches was adopted in Iowa, and the Connecticut legislature enacted (and the governor signed) a measure barring retailers from asking consumers for Social Security numbers as identification. S L10 STORES / SEPTEMBER 2008 WWW.LPINFORMATION.COM http://WWW.LPINFORMATION.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - September 2008

STORES Magazine - September 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Office Depot Unveils First Green Store Dunkin’ Donuts Debuts DDSMART What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Are You a Facebook Fan? RFID Concept2Watch E-commerce Supply Chain Marketing ERP Credit Web Optimization LP Vantage Point Newsbeat Cover Story LP Program Building Biometrics Industry Perspective Customer Service Site Selection E-Commerce LOEB Retail Letter Arts Update Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - September 2008

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