California’s Newsom Vows Increased Spending to Fight Smash-and-Grab Thefts
California’s Newsom Vows Increased Spending to Fight Smash-and-Grab Thefts
(Bloomberg) -- Stung by large-scale smash-and-grab robberies in some of California’s premier shopping districts, Governor Gavin Newsom said he will devote more than $250 million in next year’s budget to combating retail theft.
Newsom announced Friday a series of grant programs to help local officials catch and prosecute those responsible, while also vowing to disrupt operations that sell stolen goods online. The state attorney general’s office will create a unit focused solely on retail theft. And Newsom, a businessman who said his own operations have suffered break-ins, also plans to offer $20 million in repair grants to small businesses damaged by thieves.
At the same time, Newsom, a Democrat who harbors national ambitions, said California wouldn’t reverse course on criminal-justice reform. And he rejected the notion that the state has grown lenient on crime. California’s crime rates, he said, had fallen for years after voters approved a 2014 measure that reclassified some thefts from felonies to misdemeanors. Crime rates nationwide, he said, are now experiencing an uptick, and the state needs to respond.
“I want folks to know we are not walking back on our commitment in this state to advance comprehensive reforms -- we are not walking back in this state to right the wrongs of the past,” Newsom said at a press conference. “But we also have to recognize this moment we’re in, and we have to recognize people’s fears and anxieties.”
The package also includes $20 million to address fentanyl smuggling along the southern border and $25 million for gun buy-back programs. And Newsom said he will also work to advance a measure modeled after the recent Texas abortion law that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who sells illegal assault weapons or “ghost guns” in California.
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