SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – A new policy at the Grocery Outlet on 54th Street in East San Diego has area middle school students protesting age discrimination. No one under 18 is allowed to shop without an adult. As ABC 10News has learned, this follows a string of theft incidents that seemed to have infected the entire mall.

On Wednesdays, students at Horace Mann Middle School are released early. After school, they usually cross 54th Street to grab a snack at the Grocery Outlet.

“All the kids want to come here to get water and juice because it’s a very accessible store for us young people who don’t have jobs,” said seventh grader Joanna Juarez.

On this day, however, they could not enter. That’s because a new store policy says that if you’re not 18 or with someone who is, you can no longer shop there.

ABC 10 News

“What the store owner said happened was there were some people who shoplifted and misbehaved,” said Ares Sosa, co-vice president of the school’s Cesar Chavez Service Club, which helps to teach students how to organize and become community leaders.

ABC 10News spoke with an off-camera store manager who said this is a problem they’ve been dealing with for as long as he can remember.

“We understand that,” Sosa said. “We understand that this is unacceptable behavior to happen. We also understand that not all students are like this.”

The students staged their first peaceful protest last Friday. When ABC 10News arrived on the scene for protest number two on Wednesday, we learned the theft wasn’t limited to the grocery store.

Earlier that afternoon, the owner of Sonnie’s Beauty Supply, right next door, said she caught a group of four young children and two adults stealing her products.

He followed them outside her store to take a photo of the license plate on their car. One of them, an adult man, violently knocked the phone out of his hand.

When I arrived on the scene to cover the second protest, I saw police investigating a separate shoplifting incident at the Sonnie’s Beauty Supply store next door.

As you’ll see in the video, the owner was trying to take a photo of the license plate when he took the phone from her hand. pic.twitter.com/4wvjY0MgNo

— ABC 10’s Max Goldwasser (@MaxGoldwasser) November 21, 2024

The owner did not want to comment on camera either, but said he deals with thieves at least five times a week.

That’s why Grocery Outlet felt compelled to implement this kind of change.

Dulcinea Hearn, principal at Horace Mann Middle School, said: “I think there are other things that could be done other than banning all children under 18, or all students under 18 if you have a problem.” .

Some solutions offered by students include:

• Leaving their backpacks in front of the store
• More guards at the store
• Multiple cameras inside and outside the store
• Limiting the number of copies allowed in at one time

However, the store manager said he had already tried these things. They didn’t work, so he was left with no choice.
That won’t stop these students from fighting.

“We want to try to change this, not just for us, but for every kid in the school who is no longer allowed to come in here,” Juarez said.

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