CHICOPEE — With recent theft stores happening across the commonwealth, Chicopee business owner Raj Sanghvi is looking for Massachusetts to either get stricter laws or for people to be more fearful of stealing.
“The government should realize that Massachusetts was built on mom and pop stores,” Sanghvi stated. “Unless they support us and protect us, you won’t see a lot of small restaurants and the mom and pop stores survive with this kind of inflation and stealing.”
Sanghvi, owner of the Shell gas station at 197 Grove St. and Cami’s Food and Fuel on Front Street, talked with Reminder Publishing about the impact of small businesses being stolen from.
He said that a lot of his friends who own small businesses are experiencing theft. Sanghvi did not want to speak about the recent situation at Nadim’s Downtown Mediterranean Grill in Springfield but spoke about the challenges of running a small business and dealing with theft.
Nadim Kashouh is facing assault charges after allegedly confronting customers who did not pay their bill. Sanghvi said it is a monthly occurrence that one of his stores has something stolen from it and he allocates 2% to 3% of its monthly income to theft.
“Due to inflation people are obviously hurting so a lot of stores like myself and other stores are facing more theft,” Sanghvi said. “All we do is we notify the cops.”
Once the cops are notified the store owner can show them a video or picture of the theft taking place and they can try and trace who it is. Sanghvi said it is difficult to track them down if they are from out of town and most involve neighboring police departments.
He said the cops don’t have much power in Massachusetts when it comes to stealing and wish that there were stricter laws in place.
“I remember one of the cops saying that if you catch a criminal on Friday, he’s out on bail on Monday so it’s so frustrating and demoralizing for the law enforcement not to get involvement from the state and the judge, the judicial system, to teach them a lesson.”
Sanghvi acknowledged that he doesn’t know what the solution is but is hoping that people will read about it and maybe parents will teach their kids or schools can educate students not to steal.
Due to rising gas prices and inflation people have less money to spend on other things and as a business owner, Sanghvi said he has to try to keep his prices lower and sometimes take a loss so that he doesn’t lose customers to another business.
He said he would also rather someone come to him and ask for money or ask to pay at a later date instead of stealing.
“If you don’t have the money today, you can pay us tomorrow or you’re short on money we can help you out but don’t steal and humiliate us and put us through a tough situation so that we start expecting everybody walking in the store. That creates a lot of fear,” he said.
Sanghvi said small businesses like his run on a very strict budget and with utility costs rising, they have to maintain everything and keep prices at a reasonable level.
Although it may be easier for a big corporation like Walmart to be able to handle loss of income due to theft, Sanghvi said businesses may increase the price of items that are commonly stolen, making things more expensive for everyone else.
