Things have gotten so utopian in the state of California, delivery drivers are being accompanied by armed guards due to "crime concerns" while out making deliveries.
One company, Core Mart, has started hiring the guards to escort its drivers. Which means that somewhere, in a board room, it likely made more financial sense to pay for all new security staff than it did to continue to allow drivers to get robbed (and inventory lost) as was happening prior.
California: sounds like a wonderful place to do business.
San Jose police reported a slight uptick in delivery truck robberies two years ago, but no recent surge has been observed, NBC Bay Area reported.
Flavio Lopez, an employee of a different delivery company, expressed his desire for a guard or at least a second person to help monitor goods, telling NBC:
"Stuff you gotta deal with downtown. It is what it is."
Retired San Jose police officer Darrell Cortez, now working in corporate and retail security, said:
"Unfortunately, this is what society has become now with armed guards guarding merchandise from the retailer because there seems to be a sense of lawlessness in our society."
Cortez concluded:
"It's very unfortunate. You and I pay for it. The consumer pays for it on the backend because prices increase because the merchandise is going out the door and no one is stopping the bad guys because of the threat of violence."
He noted that if one company was using the guards, others in the industry likely weren't far behind from adopting the strategy.
