HOUSTON -- Houston convenience store owners would have to register their businesses with the city and install cameras, drop safes and panic buttons under a proposal headed to the City Council, reported The Houston Chronicle. Meanwhile, a similar law going into effect in Hartford, Conn., has some retailers closing early instead of complying with the new rule.
The Houston City Council's Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee voted Monday to recommend the proposed ordinance, aimed at controlling crime at hundreds of c-stores across the city, to the full council, where it could be [image-nocss] adopted within a month.
"This is a giant leap," Zaf Tahir, a Houston c-store owner and chair of Mayor Bill White's Task Force on Convenience Store Security, told the newspaper. "Now, we have this industry on a path to a very safe and secure environment."
But Tahir added that the regulations are not a substitute for more police patrols. "It's not going to fix all of the problems," he said. "This ordinance takes care of the training and of things that can be done at the stores.... It needs to be coupled with increased presence of law enforcement."
The committee action came two days after Independence Heights c-store owner Joe Edward Moses died of injuries suffered during an apparent robbery. Moses, 70, was found at his store with severe head injuries Saturday and died at a hospital later that day, said the report.
The proposed ordinance would require c-stores to register with the city to establish a database. Right now, the city does not know how many c-stores are in Houston, Tahir said.
The proposal also would require stores to have a minimum of two color digital surveillance cameras, a drop safe for cash deposits and a panic button that alerts a security company or police to a crime in progress, the report said.
Store owners would have to spend an average of $1,400 for those items, Houston Assistant Police Chief John Trevino told the paper. They would have until 2010 to comply.
Other rules that would go into effect within three months of the ordinance's adoption include training (currently, employee safety instruction consists of viewing a 10-minute DVD provided by the Houston Police Department); signage ("no loitering" and "no trespassing" signs posted on doors and walls, and height strips placed on doors, so a clerk can estimate a retreating robber's height for later identification to police); and visibility (police or passers-by should be able to see the cash register from outside. Obstructions must be removed from windows and doors).
Robberies in c-stores or their parking lots account for about 8% of all robberies in the city and about 3% of all homicides, Trevino said. "Even though it's not that high, any reduction we can do on that is beneficial to the convenience store and the police officers, because we're not on so many calls to that convenience store," he said.
Unblocking windows is one of the easiest things store owners can do, he said.
"I don't think most of these things will be particularly burdensome," Councilwoman Melissa Noriega, chairwoman of the council's Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee, told the Chronicle.
Speedy Stop c-stores already comply with most of the proposed regulations, Mike Squillace, director of loss prevention and risk management for the chain, told the paper. Speedy Stop has 10 stores in Houston and 105 in Texas. Squillace served on the task force that helped form the proposed ordinance.
"We have 16-camera systems at most of our locations—or more," he said. Speedy Stop workers have safety training and wear a panic button around their necks so they can get help even if they are assaulted while taking out the trash. "All these items are deterrents first and foremost, to be proactive," he said. "It also gives law enforcement a leg up to have the evidence they need."
And in Connecticut, security and safety at c-stores are behind a new law that takes effect today in Hartford, reported WTNH. Under the new ordinance, c-stores and gas stations open between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. need to make changes inside and outside their businesses. The affected stores must have a security camera, a silent alarm and a drop safe, among other things, said the report.
If criminal activity continues to occur at a business in the overnight hours, the license to operate during those times can be revoked.
Many stores have chosen to close before 11:30 p.m. rather than comply with the new law, according to the report.
Click hereto read White's press release about Houston's Task Force on Convenience Store Security.
To view previous CSP Daily News coverage of the task force, click here.
Click herefor more information about Tahir.
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