Never has buying, selling or
stealing a pair of sneakers in Brooklyn been this complicated.
The cat-and-mouse tactics between
sneaker store managers and sneaker thieves have escalated to new levels of
complexity. Theft prevention has changed just about everything involved in the
transaction of buying a pair of sneakers — even the simple act of trying them
on for size.
As a result, thieves have new
tactics and are resorting to stealing the lowest-hanging fruit: the unguarded,
single sneakers on display shelves.
“They come here and they steal a left shoe,” explained
Dayshorn Mickens, 24, a manager at a Foot Locker on Broadway, standing in a
room lined with shelves of left-foot shoes. “Let’s say it’s a 9 and a half.
They go to Jimmy Jazz” — another sneaker store two blocks away, where the
display shoes are all right — “and steal the right.”
Over at Jimmy Jazz, a clerk, Wesley
Mejias, 22, confirmed the unlikely bond between the two stores. “That’s true,”
he said. “They’ll get the right here and the left at another store.”
“They have actual security guards and
detectives.They wear regular clothes,” he said.
In Bushwick, Mr. Mickens, uniformed
in the store’s standard referee stripes, sees himself as manager, salesman,
security guard and detective, all in one. He lives in the neighborhood and
knows who the thieves are.
“It’s Brooklyn, so the streets
talk,” he said. “They know I work here.”
Once upon a time, stealing a pair of
sneakers was a play in two acts: 1) try on sneakers, and then 2) run away.
Mr. Mickens and other managers at
Foot Locker and Jimmy Jazz stores have a rule to prevent their sneakers from
running out the door.
When a customer wants to try on a
pair of sneakers, a clerk will hand over the left one. If the customer wants to
try on the right sneaker, the clerk will ask for the left one back before
handing the right over. The customer never wears two new sneakers at the same
time in the store.
“If we give them both,” Mr. Mejias
said at Jimmy Jazz, “they run with it.”
If the customer decides to buy the
sneakers, the clerk carries them to the register, handing over the full pair
only after payment.
Of course, there are exceptions, and
the managers use discretion.
“The one-shoe policy is cool, but
you can’t discriminate against every customer who comes in here,” Mr. Mickens
said at Foot Locker.
Mitch Lazarre, 20, a store
associate, said “A customer is going to only be focused on product. A guy who
wants to rob will focus on other people.”
Other strategies are employed to
beat the one-shoe policy.
On June 9, just before noon, a group
of young men entered the Foot Locker in Bushwick. A different manager, Jay
Barns, 20, greeted them, and they asked him to bring out several pairs of shoes
to try on. “Ten or 15 people,” he said. He was suspicious and told them he
didn’t have those sizes.
“One of the boys was like, ‘This is
nothing funny. I’ve got money. We really need these sneakers.’ ” So Mr.
Barns relented and brought the shoes up.
He handed the men left shoes. One
said, “I’ve got two feet,” Mr. Barns recalled. “I’m telling them no, this is
part of Foot Locker procedure. ‘Give me back the left and I’ll give you the
right.”
As other customers became impatient,
Mr. Barns saw members of the group stuff some T-shirts into a bag and head for
the door. Flustered, he handed the men the right shoes.
The men — many wearing one sneaker
and carrying the other — ran out the door.
“I was outnumbered,” Mr. Barns said.
Mr. Mickens is constantly vigilant
and works hard to not treat everyone who enters the store like a crook. “Some
people who come in here,” he said, “want to try on shoes.”
from The New York Times
