Visits to stores at places like Walmart have become less enjoyable in recent years.

That’s not a slam on the retail vibe.

Instead, it’s how the retailer was forced to stop massive product “shrinkage” — the name the woke crowd gives to shoplifting.

More and more items from expensive flea medicine for dogs to basic hair care products are locked behind glass doors.

The specific items that receive the blocking treatment vary from store to store.

Tracy, for example, has some blocked elements that Manteca does not, and vice versa,

It is clear.

Retail theft hurts us all.

Even so, it can be so difficult to deal with that it is turning more and more people away from either shopping at a particular store or shopping in person.

You know the drill.

You want to buy an item as cheap as a $5 hair care product.

But there is a locked glass door that separates you from what you want.

So press a button.

Then wait. And wait. And wait.

Sometimes a clerk who has been entrusted with a key by Walmart comes soon enough.

Most of the time it takes a few minutes.

And there are more than a few times it turns into 5 minutes or more.

One of three things happens.

Either invest time in waiting.

You go hunting for the Walmart clerk with the magic key.

Or walk away and choose to stop at a competitor to purchase the product.

That doesn’t make you happy.

It doesn’t even benefit Walmart.

That said, technology is on its way to help.

Walmart is testing “smart keys” on smartphones to open glass cabinets.

It is used in approximately 400 locations by Walmart employees to test its effectiveness and troubleshoot problems.

If it works, the smart keys will be accessible to loyalty members.

Clearly, there’s technology involved that allows Walmart to track who’s opening cases all the way back to where they live, thanks to data collected by the loyalty program.

If the system proves effective, Walmart will roll it out to many, if not all, of its 4,600 stores.

Locking things behind glass doors is nothing new.

Walmart was doing it 30 years ago with everything from spray paint to Trac II razor cartridges.

But in recent years, as shoplifting and organized retail theft have skyrocketed, more and more products have been put behind locked glass doors.

It’s not unusual for chains like Walgreens and CVS with locations in big cities like San Francisco to often have most of their products in some sections of their stores under lock and key.

This is frustrating for paying customers.

And it’s labor intensive – read expensive – for the retailer.

The decriminalization of shoplifting in the more “progressive” states led by California has become an epidemic.

Of course, revivalists say the numbers are exaggerated and that there are other reasons for the losses from the contraction through employee theft, burglary and the like.

But it’s also true that shoplifting has not only become rampant, but rampant in California.

It’s no wonder why Proposition 36 on Tuesday’s ballot won by a landslide.

And to be clear, it’s a measured adjustment to thefts under $950 that became simple citation events and not crimes.

Not a return to Three Strikes, lock them up for 10 years after a third theft offence.

Instead, a middle ground is needed for punishment that fits the crimes.

As an added bonus, it adds criminal culpability for those who traffic in fentanyl when one of the people using what they supply dies.

If personal responsibility is anti-awakening, then so be it.

To be clear, Walmart et al. they don’t just chase thieves.

They have changed self-checkout line protocols and technology to track consumers who knowingly or inadvertently do not scan all items.

The solution is to reduce the maximum number of items a client can scan.

This allows for more effective monitoring.

But the real winner is technology that uses scales that require a product to be placed in a tray before the next item can be scanned.

At first, it’s frustrating.

But if you get used to it, like the system Food-4-Less uses, it’s no problem.

The change is good not only for the retailer’s bottom line, but also for the consumer.

All the losses a business incurs—like the taxes it pays for things most of us can’t imagine—are collapsed into the price of the goods we pay for.

And if the losses become too great for businesses to absorb, they may end up closing, causing communities to lose places to shop.

The only losers are those who rely on retail theft either to “make a living” or to support substance abuse habits.

No one is excited about locking up products and having to run to a clerk to open files.

And needing a smartphone to shop, as well as joining a loyalty program to do so, might not make us happy.

But the bottom line is that passive measures to reduce crime are the most effective way to do this.

It also reduces problematic confrontations that can be unsafe.

Rest assured that there will always be criminals who can find ways to outsmart or game the system.

However, if the right amount of technology is combined with reasonable consequences as Proposition 36 will impose, we will have the key to significantly reducing low-level crime.

And low-level crime affects us all.

If theft is not brought under control, it will mean fewer options for law-abiding citizens.

Locking the product right now is beyond inconvenient at times.

Smart key technology will reduce it to little more than simply adjusting the way we shop.

It won’t be any more intrusive into our shopping experiences than how they now have to scan items at Food-4-Less.

This column is the opinion of the editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the views of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at [email protected]