The owner of a Bangor clothing store says the business has lost over $1600 in stolen inventory since Christmas.
BANGOR, Maine — Jessica Stuart owns Cool Girl Collective in Bangor, a clothing store that primarily sells to teenage girls.
“I feel like I try to bring something cool and then people try to steal it from me,” said Stuart.
Stuart recently realized her store has been a target for teenage shoplifters.
“At their school, all the girls were talking about how easy it was to shoplift at Cool Girl,” said Stuart. “It’s more than one school. It’s more than one group of girls.”
The owner says teenagers are taking clothes, walking into the fitting room here, hiding them in their jackets or pockets, and then walking out like they have nothing.
“It hurts the business when we have orders placed online for those items, and we don’t have them,” said Stuart.
In response, the business is temporarily closing its fitting room, upgrading security cameras, and introducing a ‘wall of shame’. The wall will feature photos of people caught shoplifting. All these measures are being taken to keep their business afloat.
“I’ve got six young girls that work for me and if my store goes out of business because I am getting robbed left and right, then that hurts them and they are part of the community too,” said Stuart.
One of her employees is Jillian Burke. She said it is hard to catch people in the act of stealing.
“Is this big group of girls gonna go to the back and still try and like steal or hide things because when people go to the back you can’t really hear what they are saying or anything,” said Bruke.
“Not to say that, you know, this theft is acceptable and this theft is unacceptable,” said Jeremy Brock, the public information officer with Bangor police. “But it is a little more personalized to our community when a small business owner is affected.”
Stuart didn’t feel comfortable calling the police with her lack of physical evidence. However, Bangor police urge any small business to talk to local police if a crime occurs.
“If you have a question about it, you can certainly call and ask. You can just, you know, ask the question. We can just talk it over the phone,” said Brock.
Stuart has started a *spotfund to replace lost inventory and fund higher-quality security cameras.