OttawaRetail theft is on the rise in Ottawa, according to reports coming before the city’s police services board Monday, and some small business owners say they’re losing thousands. The board’s vice-chair says limited resources means police efforts are focused on violent and organized crime, not shoplifting.Retail theft up 384% since 2015, according to reports going to Ottawa’s police boardCameron Mahler · CBC News · Posted: Oct 27, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 4 minutesSummers Wang’s Rideau Street beauty, lifestyle and snack shop has seen about $70,000 in product lost to theft since opening in 2023. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)Every day, Summers Wang watches customers stroll through his Rideau Street beauty and lifestyle shop, some stopping to chat — and others to steal.“We always say hi and help them choose our products. And then they turn their back to us and put it into a pocket,” he said. “It’s really, really upset me.”Wang says there’s little he can do without serious systemic changes.A set of reports going before Monday’s meeting of the Ottawa Police Services Board show that shoplifting was up 384 per cent between 2015 and 2024, and that councillors and shop owners have serious concerns about safety issues and lost product.In his first year running Axia Station downtown, Wang estimates he lost about $50,000 to retail theft. After investing around $30,000 in cameras and other loss-prevention technology, those losses dropped, Wang said — but he’s still out roughly $20,000 a year. Thefts happen, Wang says, “almost everyday.”Now, he keeps more expensive products in magnetic lockboxes, which cost between $10 and $15 each. He said he also spends $5,000 a month on security guards, but even they have limited powers.Summers Wang says he’s spent in the area of $30,000 on theft prevention tech, including magnetic lockboxes. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)“If they don’t listen and just walk away, we can’t stop them,” he said.Summers says his only option is to call police, but he adds that they don’t consider shoplifting an emergency, noting it can take upwards of two hours for officers to arrive.“Sometimes it’s longer.”Not just an Ottawa problemThe problem isn’t exclusive to Ottawa, however.“It used to happen once a month, once every couple months,” said Gordon Dean, owner of Mike Dean Local Grocer in Sharbot Lake, Ont.But lately, Dean says shoplifting has been taking place more than once a week — and this past week, he says it was four days in a row.“Which just kind of made us say, ‘enough is enough.’”Gordon Dean says he’s had to install theft prevention measures at his Sharbot Lake location, including one-way gates to control how people exit the store. (Submitted by Gordon Dean)Dean has installed one-way gates and chained off unused registers, the kind of measures he says his customers are used to seeing in big-city stores. “We really don’t like that. That’s not who we are,” said Dean. “But we have a duty to make sure we’re making money … we are losing $1,000 a day out the front door.”Thefts are increasingly thorough and planned out, he said, with customers coming in wearing “outfits or coats that have inner sleeves or inner pockets and they’re walking out the door with two, three, four, $500.”Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr, vice-chair of the police board, says there aren’t any plans to boost funding to the unit that handles retail theft. (Isabel Harder/CBC)‘Simply don’t have the resources’ Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr, who also serves as vice-chair of the police board, told CBC News she’s heard the same concerns.Carr says Ottawa police data is showing a decline in clearance rates — the percentage of crimes that get solved — as they dropped to just 26 per cent last year. “Unfortunately, we simply don’t have the resources right now, and there are no planned increases to the unit focused on retail theft, even in the new budget,” she said.Carr said police are instead focusing more heavily on violent and organized crime.“The smash-and-grabs, those more organized crimes — that’s where the police are putting their resources,” Carr said. “There’s not a lot of resources going towards solving theft in small businesses.”The rise in retail thefts, she added, could be a symptom of larger issues like poverty and food insecurity.”You know, we see theft from food stores, Starbucks, these type of places that serve ready-to-eat food,” she said.ABOUT THE AUTHORCameron is a journalist with CBC News. He’s worked with CBC Kitchener-Waterloo covering local news, municipal councils, and both the 2025 provincial and federal elections. Cameron also interned with CBC Toronto’s Enterprise Unit, helping to cover elements of the Greenbelt controversy. Contact Cameron with story ideas at cameron.mahler@cbc.ca. Follow Cameron on X @cam_mahler
‘Enough is enough’: Small business owners frustrated as shoplifting keeps rising
