In the Manitoba tourism hub of Gimli, a looming summer of near-constant shoplifting has Sumalee Phanad rethinking how she runs her business.
“This year’s the worst. Every week, almost. Every week or every busy day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I have to lock the door. I cannot let everybody all in at the same time,” she told the Free Press.
Phanad owns Thai Plaza boutique, and imports all its products (summer dresses, scarves and other apparel) directly from Thailand, her home country.
Sumalee Phanad connects the increase in shoplifting at her Thai Plaza boutique and other stores with the economic downturn. ‘It’s going to be more difficult for me because I have to hire more staff.’
Much of her income comes from tourists flocking to Gimli in the warmer seasons. In an industry where you essentially have several months to make the majority of your business, she said out-of-control shoplifting is having an damaging impact on local shop owners.
One Gimli shop closes its doors when the streets get too full, because the money made won’t cover the cost of what’s stolen, Phanad said.
“He says it isn’t worth it because people are stealing… He doesn’t make enough to hire more staff. You pay more staff, but you don’t make (more) sales.”
Phanad opened Thai Plaza after her family moved from Winnipeg in 2012, looking for a lower cost of living and a quieter life.
Business — and even the general tourist atmosphere — hasn’t been the same since COVID-19 pandemic public health restrictions came and left. “It is unusual,” she said. “Everybody’s really uneasy.”
A rise in theft-related crime has been noted by Manitoba RCMP in the past two years, particularly shoplifting.
Shoplifting with a cost under $5,000 is the second-highest occurrence of theft, RCMP report, second only to miscellaneous thefts under $5,000.
There was a 37 per cent increase in shoplifting under $5,000 between 2021 and 2023, from 688 reported cases to 942.
This year is set to be even higher, with 566 reports between Jan. 1 and June 20, the police force noted.
Phanad connects the rise in shoplifting with people coming into the community from Winnipeg and beyond who have been hit hard by the rising cost of living. That spike affects her, too, so now she’s considering retraining staff and hiring more people to try and combat stealing.
“It’s going to be more difficult for me because I have to hire more staff and the (cost of) labour is up… Even if you hire more staff, it’s mental too,” she said. “The economy is not good.”
In both 2021 and 2022, just under half of all reported rural thefts to RCMP happened in western Manitoba.
The Brandon-based Rural Manitoba Economic Development Corp. looks at the wider structural issues that impact businesses outside of Winnipeg.
For rural businesses, especially ones in areas that see tourists passing through, every business concern that hits Winnipeg owners hits them, too, but magnified, chief executive officer Margot Cathcart said.
Labour challenges are exacerbated by the difficulty of finding reliable short-term housing and transport issues, thefts even on a small scale can destroy a business that only opens one season a year, she said.
“There’s no doubt that there’s also more petty theft in bigger places where there’s more traffic, but they also have more resources to be able to put into different kinds of security.”
The concern isn’t only west of Lake Winnipeg.
In Grand Marais, the sprawling Juan More Thing emporium is hard to miss and filled to the brim with jewelry, beach toys, sandals and other tourist favourites.
Owners Dale Boss and Terry Neplyk have been in business since 2011, opening a shop on the boardwalk, and then settling on Grand Beach Road a year later. They, too, have a small window to make a year’s worth of income.
“We’ve got so many displays of thievery, it’s ridiculous,” Neplyk said. “We’re open for 100 days, that’s all, to try to make money.
“Every time something’s stolen, somebody steals something for $100, you have to do $1,000 worth of business to make up that $100 that’s been stolen,” he said. “It’s very, very rough on being a small-business owner to be able to stay profitable when people do steal, and we know it’s happening on a regular basis.”
There’s the added fear of being in a rural area when a crime is happening — Boss noted there isn’t an RCMP station in their community, and if they call the police, they’re coming in from elsewhere.
“We’re on deaf ears all the time. We complain to our municipal (leadership), and we’re just all shrugged off. We’re a small little town and we were trying our hardest,” Boss said.
“Every business out there is trying to make enough money just to survive, and then people walk in and take our profits away.”
