Shoplifting Letters No Joke to Grocery

LONGMONT, Colo. — It may have been someone’s idea of a joke, but King Soopers officials aren’t laughing about a batch of bogus letters inviting people to shoplift at their supermarkets.

Executive Vice President Bill Boggess said last week that an unknown number of letters were mailed asking people to participate in testing a new shoplifter-detection system at the supermarket chain’s stores.

Boggess said people were invited to shoplift items and, if they got caught, all they had to do was explain they were participating in the test. If they were not caught, they were asked to write the store listing what they had stolen.

“We did get three letters from customers saying, ‘This is what I took,’ ” Boggess said. “But they may have been part of the joke.”

He said store managers have not noticed a marked increase in shoplifting and that only three or four copies of the letter were reported to King Soopers representatives.