Mohammed Rajak, who owns Buywell DayToday on Dalmarnock Road, says incidents in his shop happen “daily” and are costing him his future.
Mohammed said: “My pension is being eroded because I’m losing all this money so it could be equal to my pension by the time I retire.
“During Covid it’s like were heroes for keeping Scotland going in terms of food.
“It’s funny how quickly people forget and now we’re almost like the villains for price increases in products which we don’t have any control over.”
He said: “All of a sudden, they think it’s their right to steal and when you try to challenge them it becomes ‘well I need to eat’ and sometimes it’s genuine but it’s probably the non-genuine ones who are thinking they can get away with it.”
However, Mohammed says not only has there been a rise in thefts, but there is also a “change in the way it’s done” with people now acting more brazen.
The 53-year-old explained: “It was petty crime and people were scared but now it’s blatant.
“This type of utter disregard is very dangerous for retailers in the short term and for society in the longer term when people think they can get away with it and there’s no repercussions.
“It’s more in your face now and the audacity seems to be taking over.”
He continued: “I’ve noticed it’s more from the younger population, I’m talking school children, they think they can get away with it because they’re underage.
“Sometimes they’ll taunt you and say ‘I can nick anything I want, you can’t touch me.”
He says the attack is something he still thinks about today and he walks away from incidents as it’s “not worth it”.
He said: “It was a nightmare [coming back to work]. Flashbacks, not trusting anybody anymore, looking over your shoulder all the time.
“That kind of feeling is back in my mind again.
“The rise in personal attacks is exponential year on year, the rise in verbal abuse is there as well.
“We’ve had people with machetes trying to steal from the shop and the worst one is when people spit at you.”
Mohammed believes CCTV and saying he will call the police is no longer the deterrent it once was but has found filming people on his mobile phone and telling them it will be posted on social media causes a change in their attitude.
He added: “If you say to them ‘I’m going to put it on Facebook’ then all of a sudden, the face gets covered up and they run away.”
Mohammed believes the rise in shoplifting has also been exasperated by the police being stretched thin and prisons being near capacity.
He said: “In general, [I think] the courts are very lenient, so people think they’ll get a slap on the wrist which is all they’re doing at the moment so the deterrent is not there but unfortunately the retailer is the one that’s losing out financially and also losing sleep because they’re thinking ‘what’s going to happen to my business whilst I’m not there’.
“I buy stuff to sell it to customers, I shouldn’t have to be chasing people while they’re trying to take my products for nothing.”
