Old Spaghetti Factory Restaurants Choose Interface to Modernize Network, Voice, and Physical Security

Old Spaghetti Factory implements Interface’s comprehensive suite of network, voice, and managed intrusion solutions to modernize outdated systems and streamline operations across 40+ locations

St. Louis, MO (November 9, 2022) — Interface Systems, a leading managed service provider delivering business security, managed network, UCaaS, and business intelligence solutions to distributed enterprises, today announced that The Old Spaghetti Factory (OSF), a family-owned and operated restaurant chain with over 40 locations across 13 states, has chosen Interface’s suite of managed services to transform its network, voice and security infrastructure.

Read more in today's Vendor Spotlight column below
 

CLEAR Day 1 Recap: Sold-out CLEAR conference kicks off in Orlando


Law Enforcement and Retail Asset Protection professionals descended on Orlando, Florida, for Day 1 of the TalkLP produced annual CLEAR (Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail) conference, in partnership with the FLEPRU annual conference (Florida Law Enforcement Property Recovery Unit).

This highly anticipated sold-out event brought attendees who were most excited about the relevant and timely educational content focused on retail crimes impacting our respective companies and communities, as well as investigative tactics that only this conference can provide. Sessions included:



The afternoon breakout sessions gave retail and law enforcement professionals a deeper dive into their fields of expertise. Attendees were eager to join industry experts as they dug into specialized topics, such as:

● Get the Facts: Real-Life Case Studies
● Pawn Shop Investigations
● Face Matching in Action: Understanding the technology, legalities, and privacy concerns

Attendees also took the opportunity to visit with Solutions Providers to learn about the most current solutions and tools needed to combat crime against retailers.

Capping off Day 1 – attendees enjoyed the Networking exhibit showcase sponsored by Securitas.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Day 2 wrap full of more amazing networking and educational content!
 

Vast Majority of ORC Legislation Sponsors Will Remain in Office
How Did Supporters of ORC Legislation Perform in the Midterms?

Lawmakers who have been supportive of ORC legislation were largely successful at the ballot box in Tuesday's midterm elections

A number of lawmakers who supported efforts to curb organized retail crime faced election races in the 2022 midterms. The two key pieces of legislation focusing on the retail crime crisis were the INFORM Consumers Act and the Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act.

Read below to see the breakdown of how each of these lawmakers fared in the 2022 midterm elections, and which of them will remain in Congress to continue the ORC fight.

Sponsors of the INFORM Consumers Act (S.936/H.R. 5502)

• Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) - Not up for re-election and remains in office
• Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) - Won re-election in Illinois

9 Senate Co-Sponsors: 5 Not up for re-election & will remain in office | 3 re-elected | 1 Too close to call
69 House Co-Sponsors: 48 re-elected | 11 too early to call | 10 leaving Congress

Sponsors of the Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act (S.5046/H.R. 9177)

• Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) - Won re-election in Iowa
• Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) - Won re-election in Colorado

1 Senate Co-Sponsor: Too close to call
4 House Co-Sponsors: 1 re-elected | 2 too early to call | 1 Leaving the House

Click here to take action and urge your member of Congress to act

Crime Was a Top Election Issue - But Did It Impact Results?
Election Day voters talk crime, first-time gun buyer surge
Americans are starting to take personal safety into their own hands and bringing their concerns over a nationwide crime surge to the polls on Election Day.

"There's a lot of first-time gun buyers constantly," FSS Armory owner Ross Osias told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney in a voter panel Tuesday. "They're all expressing some fear and this new wave of, ‘I need to protect myself.’"

In a town hall-style event on "Varney & Co.," voters from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania explained how their experiences with crime are impacting their decision in the 2022 midterms.

"The progressive[s] have unleashed chaos upon all of us," Glenn Vile, brother-in-law of a murdered Goldman Sachs employee, said. "And our administration, the mayor, the governor, [New York State Assembly Speaker] Carl Heastie, they're all tolerating crime, and it's chaos."

U.S. total firearm checks peaked in 2020 and have remained high since then, with 38 million new sales or transfers in the 2021 calendar year, according to the FBI’s NICS database. Osias, who operates his firearms store in New Jersey, claimed he gets anywhere from 3 to 5 first-time gun owners per day, and an equal number of men and women are purchasing products.

Also during the panel, the president of the largest coalition of small businesses in West Philadelphia claimed a recent survey showed that most establishments are closing their doors early every night.

"Ninety-two percent of our businesses were closing every day before nightfall because they had significant security concerns," West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative President Jabari Jones said.

The small business advocate described his community’s commercial corridors and main streets as "ghost towns" the moment the sun goes down. "When you have crime concerns, those businesses can't even find workers that are willing to work later hours because they're afraid of being potentially victimized on a job," Jabari said. foxbusiness.com

Criminal Justice Reformers win AG Races
Reformist Attorneys General Win in Illinois, Massachusetts
Reform-minded prosecutors in Illinois and Massachusetts claimed victory Tuesday in races driven by opponents pushing ‘tough-on-crime policies.

Kwame Raul won a second term as Illinois Attorney General against an opponent who accused him of ‘not being aggressive” enough in fighting crime, report Sarah Freishtat, William Lee and Christy Gutowski for the Chicago Tribune.

Republican opponent Thomas Viore, backed by a number of state attorneys around the state had centered his campaign on Raul’s support of the SAFE-T Act, a major overhaul of the state’s criminal justice system aimed at providing alternatives to prison for some offenders. Republicans argued the measures would lead to increased violence by offenders released early from jail.

In Boston, Former city councilor Andrea Campbell was poised to become the first Black woman attorney general of Massachusetts after a campaign that also turned on the pace of reforms.

Calling it a “history-making night” for Democrats in the state, Campbell said it was a victory for efforts to bring new voices into criminal justice policy, report Travis Anderson, Ivy Scott and Jeremy C. Fox for The Boston Globe. thecrimereport.org

New Taskforce Aims to 'Reduce ORC One City at a Time'
Taskforce aims to reduce organized retail crime across US communities
A taskforce including law enforcement, local governments, retail organizations and more will focus on reducing organized crime in communities across the United States.

The Alliance of Companies and Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS) Taskforce represents a collaboration between LiveView Technologies (LVT) and the Paducah and Opelika Police Departments, local government and retailers in Paducah, Kentucky and Opelika, Alabama. The collaboration launches with the mission to improve community safety and reduce organized retail crime one city at a time.

The taskforce aims to enhance communication between municipalities, law enforcement and retailers such as JCPenney, Lowe’s, Walgreens and Walmart so customers may have positive shopping experiences. The participating cities of Paducah and Opelika will use LVT mobile surveillance units and software capabilities to deter and detect behavior commonly associated with shoplifting and other crime.

“Paducah is a regional shopping hub with numerous national and local retailers,” said Paducah Police Chief Brian Laird. “We are constantly working to improve the quality of life and decrease crime in Paducah. We believe that deploying LVT’s security units in partnership with local retailers will improve our ability to diminish crime and care for not only our citizens, but also visitors to Paducah.”

“The influx of shoppers ahead of the holiday season creates additional complexities at brick and mortar locations,” said Opelika Chief of Police Shane Healey. The ACCESS Taskforce will aim to reduce retail crime during the busier winter months at stores in the city. securitymagazine.com

Homicides Up 44% Compared to 2019
New data shows rise in violent crime across the country, including in Raleigh
New numbers released Friday show violent crime is on the rise in Raleigh. The data comes from the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Seventy agencies from Dallas to Houston to Raleigh responded and overall violent crime is up.

Homicides are actually down 4 percent compared to the same time period last year, but they are 44% higher than what the organization saw in 2019.

"Without question, the numbers are completely unacceptable," said Laura Cooper, executive director of the association. "The number of victims, families and communities impacted is unacceptable. We also must not forget the amount of violence directed toward law enforcement."

Homicides in Raleigh are at 34 versus 27 this time last year. Aggravated Assaults are at 851 at this point in 2022 versus 783 this time last year. Chief Patterson said the number of homicides is up and that's problematic.

She talked about a number of different solutions including intelligence-led policing and engaging and partnering with the community. abc11.com

Tracking How Mass Shooters Pay for Their Guns
How active shooters pay for guns

Payment methods used by active shooters to acquire guns are becoming part of the U.S. dialogue about such incidents.

Active shooters gunning down people at schools, grocery stores and parades has become an epidemic in America. And it’s one that people of all political persuasions condemn as horribly tragic, even though they disagree on how to prevent such acts of violence.

The issue of how shooters acquire their guns has long been a focus of discussion, and the payment method they use in acquiring their weapons — whether by credit card, cash or some other means — is also emerging as part of the debate. That discourse carried over into the payments industry earlier this year when an international standard-setting body moved to code gun-sellers as part of processing a credit card transaction. Members of Congress questioned the move and card network companies like Visa and card issuers like JPMorgan Chase were caught up in the discussion too. Now, companies are awaiting the new standard and mulling the contours of implementation.

With a proliferation of payment options, including buy now-pay later (BNPL) tools, methods of payment for guns are poised to remain center-stage as opposing factions wrestle over the issue in the political arena, in courts and in public forums.

As a result, Payments Dive has embarked on a project to collect and categorize data on payment methods active shooters used in acquiring their guns. The publication’s aim is to shed light on the facts related to shooters’ payments and inform the broader dialogue happening in the industry around this topic. The series begins today with entries on the gun transactions at issue for mass shootings in Highland Park, Illinois; Uvalde, Texas; and Buffalo, New York, shootings this year. paymentsdive.com

Crime, costs and Covid among issues on minds of voters at Buffalo polling places

US: 99.6M Cases - 1M Dead - 97.2M Recovered
Worldwide: 638.6M Cases - 6.6M Dead - 618.3M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 813

Companies Ditch Offices Altogether in Post-COVID World
The companies that went fully remote — and never looked back

A coronavirus-driven shift to remote work has been seamless enough for some companies to ditch physical offices altogether.

One frequently cited 2021 survey of 1,250 U.S. business owners by web services firm Digital.com found that 69% had closed some or all of their office space since March 2020, with 37% stating that they had permanently closed their offices.

Another survey conducted jointly in October 2021 by researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the University of Chicago and Stanford University found the total reduction of office space among firms amounted to between 1% to 2% on average. In a Harvard Business Review piece discussing their findings, the researchers said this may indicate that employers are seeking to reduce office density rather than office space.

Employers may view the office as a format that can be evolved to fit a flexibility-friendly world, according to an August survey by commercial real estate firm JLL that found 73% of companies planned to make their offices more open and collaborative. Yet, even organizations that mandate some degree of in-person work attendance have seen rows of empty desks. hrdive.com

32% of Employers Still Mandate COVID Vaccine
Some Employers Still Require COVID-19 Vaccines
Approximately a third of businesses still require workers to get COVID-19 vaccinations, according to a recent survey. Vaccination policies and exemption procedures need to be in place as employers hire new and seasonal workers.

Employer vaccination requirements decreased this year from 34 percent in 2021 to 32 percent, Mercer found in a survey of more than 700 employers. Fewer employers required one booster (16 percent) or two (11 percent).

If a spike in COVID-19 infections occurs this winter, 52 percent of surveyed businesses said they are providing additional paid time off for employees recovering from COVID-19.

Many employers now approach COVID-19 shots much like flu shots, with health promotion information and resources for receiving the shot, said Mary Kay O'Neill, a senior health consultant in total health management with Mercer in the Seattle area. shrm.org

The COVID Impact
Walgreens is the latest retailer to increase investment in health care
This week, Walgreens Boots Alliance’s VillageMD announced a merger with medical care centers operator Summit Health. Together with Summit Health, the parent company of urgent care provider CityMD, the network of care centers have 680 locations in U.S. 26 markets. With the new $8.9 billion deal, Walgreens joins co-investor Cigna in backing these growing chains of care centers.  modernretail.co

Covid Cases Keep Rising in China Despite Lockdowns

China’s Covid controls are hurting more of the economy

Workplace Safety: Top Priority for Businesses
How Technology can Help Create a Cleaner, Safer Workplace

Amid labor and other challenges, businesses must find ways to work smarter, not harder to provide a clean workplace for all employees.

1. Address worker fatigue and burnout

To combat these challenges, many companies are turning to automated solutions. For cleaning staff working around the clock, adding a floor scrubbing robot can produce benefits for both employees and warehouse facility managers alike.

2. Provide regulatory agencies with measurable data

In highly regulated industries, such as food processors, pharmaceutical manufacturers and medical equipment suppliers, keeping distribution centers and manufacturing environments clean is paramount to doing business.

3. Deliver advanced workplace safety

These enhancements have modernized automation and can make today’s workplace a much safer environment for employees and equipment. A safer work environment lessens employee absences due to injury and product loss due to preventable accidents, thereby leading to improvements in overall productivity.

4. Higher productivity and employee satisfaction

More and more warehouses and manufacturers are making the connection that automation can lead to improved metrics, increased safety and better employee workplace satisfaction. Cleaning automation technology benefits companies by strengthening their businesses, both now and into the future. ehstoday.com

RFID Continues to Expand
New EECC Survey Offers Bright Outlook for RFID

The RFID testing center has released its first industry-wide analysis of trends in UHF RFID technology, along with its latest almanac reviewing RFID tags and readers.

Despite global economic and energy challenges, the mood among those in the radio frequency identification industry is good. Companies providing RFID technology and solutions experienced 20 to 30 percent growth in the past year, and most expect to see more of the same going forward. That growth has occurred despite a worldwide chip shortage that is expected to ease in 2024, according to a new European EPC Competence Center (EECC) report titled "RFID Market Survey," the first of its kind from the RFID innovation center.

RFID Trends Advice from Industry Leaders

Participants were asked 30 questions related to trends, technology development, challenges ahead and their professional outlook. Ninety percent of interviewees said they expect the RFID marketing to rise or rise heavily, while just 7 percent expect it to fall. The majority (66 percent) foresee a rise in the sales of RFID labels across all company sizes. Customer-specific RFID label sales are expected to rise, according to 86 percent of respondents. However, a much smaller percentage anticipate the price declining in the label market, which poses a challenge ahead for those seeking low-cost deployments.

The survey finds that RFID plays a major role in a more crowded IoT or automatic-identification market, while 7 percent of respondents voted for other technologies. RFID will not replace barcodes, the report indicates, while technologies such as active auto-ID systems—for example, computer vision—are expected to grow as well. Overall, von Bonin reports, the results were highly optimistic. Despite crises in commercial markets, including Europe's energy challenges due to the Russian-Ukraine war, the U.S. and China economic standoff and chip shortages, RFID sales are still rising. rfidjournal.com

Keys to Strong Holiday Sales for Retailers
5 Tips for Small Business Holiday Sales

1. Tap into Online Markets and Webstores - Setting up an online store and selling on marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and Walmart and webstores like Shopify are fast and easy ways to find new customers before the holiday rush.

2. Advertise Online - Investing in digital ads can help you reach more customers cheaply and at their convenience. They allow you to find potential customers who are more likely to love what you offer and purchase it as a gift for themselves or a loved one.

3. Leverage Analytics - A major benefit to using digital advertising is all the free data and analytics from platforms like Google. The data they provide can help you discover which ads work best for which audience, where to improve, and how to decrease conversion costs.

4. Host a Holiday Event - People love to socialize and shop. If you’re a local store with a brick-and-mortar, trying out an in-person “Sip and Shop” may bring in new customers right in time for the holiday season!

5. Find Where to Improve - Even small businesses that use all the incredible digital tools at their disposal can still improve their online presence. connectedcouncil.org

Retaliatory Store Closures?
As major companies shut down stores with active union drives, workers file more complaints of retaliation

An NBC News analysis found complaints over closures and other alleged retaliation jumped nearly 80% from before the pandemic.

So far this year, workers have filed 34 unfair labor charges under the legal category for complaints about retaliatory shutdowns, relocations and work subcontracting, according to an NBC News analysis of NLRB data. (The NLRB doesn’t isolate shutdown data specifically.) That number more than doubled from 2021, NBC found, and jumped about 80 percent from 2017-2019, the three years before the pandemic, when complaints ranged from 16 to 23 annually.

That rise comes as worker complaints about unfair labor practices more generally were up 19 percent as of September, compared to the same period in 2021, according to the NLRB.

Many businesses say the closings are not directly related to union efforts but reflect new financial constraints in the economy. Trader Joe’s, for example, abruptly closed a wine shop in the center of New York City where workers had been organizing. Spokeswoman Nakia Rohde said the Manhattan closure had nothing to do with the organizing and that the wine shop was one of its “least profitable stores.”

Chipotle said that the closure in Maine also had nothing to do with union activity at the store and that the company respected its employee’s rights to organize. A store in Lansing, Michigan later voted to unionize with the Teamsters. nbcnews.com

Most Trusted U.S. Retailers
The most trusted brand in America is…
Amazon was the most trusted brand by all generations in a study by Clarify Capital, which surveyed over 1,000 Americans about their opinions about different industries and specific brands. The e-tail giant received the top rating despite the fact that retail did not rank among the five most-trusted industries, which were health care, construction, repairs, technology and real estate (Amazon does have involvement in the health care and technology sectors).

Looking specifically at consumer trust in the retail category, Amazon was the most trusted retailer (deemed trustworthy by 56% of respondents), followed by Walmart (44%) and Target (36%). Macy's, Albertsons and Lowe’s were the least-trusted retail brands (each cited by 22% of respondents). chainstoreage.com

Another Potential Hurricane Heads Toward Florida
Tropical Storm Nicole tracker: Projected path, watches and warnings, storm surge, winds and rainfall
Tropical Storm Nicole is expected to strengthen into a hurricane on Wednesday and bring periods of heavy rain, wind and coastal flooding to Florida and the southeastern U.S. through late week.

The National Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane watch for Florida's east coast from the Brevard-Volusia county line south to Hallandale Beach as Subtropical Storm Nicole formed Monday morning in the Atlantic Ocean with a projected path predicted to bring it toward the state by Wednesday night as hurricane.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has also issued a State of Emergency for 34 counties in the potential path of the storm including all of Central Florida. foxweather.com  govtech.com

Party City to shrink corporate workforce by 19% as consumers pull back

How retailers worked to get out the vote on Election Day

Can resale save brick-and-mortar retail?