Ron Lem, who owns a plumbing company that often sends him to jobs in San Francisco, stopped into the Safeway near Pier 39 the other day. He picked up an energy drink and was flabbergasted to see a guy pick up a 12-pack of beer, put it under his coat and start out the door.

“I went to the security guard,” Lem wrote in an e-mail, “only to be told there was nothing they could do.”

And that wasn’t the end of it. In the next 20 minutes, Lem says he saw three cases of blatant shoplifting with no response from security. The capper was: After he left the store and walked over to the waterfront, there was one of the shoplifters, enjoying his stolen snack.

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“He was like, ‘What? Me worry?’” Lem said, recounting the incident on the phone. “He had everything he needed. It is bizarre. If they are not going to enforce it, why make us pay?”

Lem was so disturbed by what he saw that he followed up with a Safeway loss prevention manager.

“He told me they do have a policy in place of not apprehending shoplifters,” Lem said.

Contacted Friday, Safeway spokesman Keith Turner said Lem “apparently misunderstood his conversation with Safeway’s loss prevention investigator.”

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Turner said, “We do have procedures in place to prevent theft and to apprehend shoplifters without chasing, getting into altercations or other dangerous situations. The details of those policies are kept confidential.”

That sounded pretty vague, so I went to that Bay Street Safeway Friday morning. It didn’t take long to see what Lem was talking about.

Although at least two security officials patrolled the entrance to the supermarket, a kid in dreadlocks and a bucket hat strolled in, walked over to the produce aisle and casually put a bottle of orange juice and a sandwich in his backpack. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest that I was watching, looking me straight in the eye as he walked past me and out the door.

I went to the nearest security officer and told him what I’d seen. He looked at the kid, who was half a block away and shrugged.

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“If it is under $1,000 (actually the amount is $950) it is just a misdemeanor,” he said. “We don’t usually do anything.”

The surprising part of this is that this is not an isolated situation. Many large corporations have established policies of looking the other way when shoplifters strike. Concerned about legal liability and the potential for injury, in many cases they actually forbid employees to confront thieves.

Walmart, which was famous for its “zero tolerance” policy on theft, made an almost complete about-face in 2006. In an in-house document obtained by the New York Times, Walmart told employees it would not prosecute shoplifters who steal items worth less than $25.

Apparently, it doesn’t want its employees chasing thieves, even if the items are valuable. In January, an Alabama Walmart manager spotted a habitual shoplifter leaving the store with what turned out to be $1,118 worth of goods.

The manager chased the man across the street and, with the help of nearby security guards, apprehended and held the man until police arrived.

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Walmart’s response? The manager was fired for failing to follow company policy. Walmart said, “For the safety of our associates as well as our customers . . . (we) rely on law enforcement.”

The problem with calling the cops is that by the time they arrive the shoplifter is already gone — or relaxing by the bay, in Lem’s example. The chances of arriving in time to catch them are almost zero.

So, although Safeway’s Turner says, “Theft is a serious problem in the retail industry and we do our best to control it,” shoplifting seems to be just part of the cost of doing business.

It’s not just Safeway or Walmart. Other large retail companies have the same nonconfrontational policies, but, like Safeway, they don’t want them to become public.

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It’s only when someone like Lem sees blatant theft taking place that this is mentioned. It may be company policy but Lem was still shocked.

“I mean,” Lem said. “if you are not going to enforce it, why not just put a sign up that says, ‘If you really want it, take it. We won’t stop you.’”

No need for a sign. It’s clear petty thieves have already figured that out.

The post There’s such a factor as a free lunch appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Police confirmed late Tuesday that they had arrested 32-year-old Jorge Davis Milton in connection with the attack and another case in which someone was stabbed in the face in the San Francisco mission district. Milton has no home address and has been charged with multiple criminal offenses.

RELATED: ABC7 Presses SF DA About What Is Done In Crimes Against Asian Americans

“Somebody pushed me from the back and started beating me and I am losing consciousness. When I wake up, I am bloody,” said 59-year-old Danilo Yu Chang, whose eyes are bruised and swollen after being attacked. Chang describes what happened near 3rd Street and Market Streets in San Francisco.

“I have two black eyes, but my vision has returned to the right, but the left is still … I cannot see from the left,” says Chang, who further told us, “They didn’t take anything, everything is with me, I have not lost anything. “

While Chang believes he was targeted as a Chinese Filipino male, police say that “there is nothing to suggest that the incident was bias motivated,” and tell us that the suspect was also involved in the incident.

The attack on Market Street happened Monday afternoon and was the first day Chang, a travel agent that commuted from out of town, was back at work since the pandemic began.

VIDEO: Suspect arrested in attack on 91-year-old in Oakland’s Chinatown

Chang says he now fears San Francisco and will try to move in with his family in Indiana or Nevada.

“San Francisco is just getting worse, old San Francisco is gone, everything is gone, and it’s a dangerous place to go for a walk, it’s no longer safe,” says Chang.

There’s a GoFundMe that Chang can use to pay for medical expenses. Here you can make a contribution.

San Francisco police say the two incidents began around 1:30 p.m. Monday when officers on 16th and Mission Streets responded with a knife stab. They found a 64-year-old man who suffered from a wound on his cheek. Police say he was rushed to hospital with life threatening injuries.

The officials eventually found that the “suspect cut the victim’s face with a knife and threw him to the ground.”

The suspect then fled to the 16th and Mission BART station.

RELATED: The video shows a brazen ambush on an elderly Asian man in the SF laundromat

About 30 minutes later, police said a 59-year-old Vallejo resident was walking on Market Street’s 600 block when he was attacked.

That victim was Danilo Yu Chang.

Chang suffered head injuries and did not know what had happened to him. A witness told officers that the suspect ran up to the victim and hit him several times in the head, causing him to fall to the ground where he lay motionless.

Police say the suspect escaped the scene on a Muni bus.

“Using images captured on surveillance videos and descriptions from witnesses, SFPD investigators found that the same suspect was responsible for both unprovoked attacks,” a police statement said.

Crime alert bulletins were distributed to the police.

RELATED: Asian Grandma Knocked Out in New York in Unprovoked Attack

The next morning, Tuesday morning at around 9:30 a.m., officers found a man who matched the suspect’s description.

Police say “the officers have arrested the subject and, during an investigation, developed a likely reason for arresting him for both of these incidents.”

Jorge Devis-Milton, 32, was arrested on the following charges:

16. / Mission streets:

• Attack with a deadly weapon other than a firearm
• Intensified attack likely to cause major bodily harm
• Heightened chaos
• Battery that causes serious injury

600 block of Market Street:

• Battery that causes serious injury
• Intensified attack likely to cause major bodily harm

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