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Aug 3, 2008 5:00 pm US/Central
Houston Tries To Improve Convenience Store Safety
HOUSTON (AP) ―
Police have begun enforcing new regulations this summer that require convenience stores to register with law enforcement, provide employees with safety training and install equipment like drop safes, panic buttons and cameras.
If stores do not comply, police can fine them up to $500.
It's the first time a major metropolitan area has started such a comprehensive program targeting crime at convenience stores, said Houston police Assistant Chief John Trevino.
"The ultimate goal of this ordinance is to make the convenience stores safe for the employees that work there and safe for the communities that shop there," he told the Houston Chronicle.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, working in a convenience store has one of the highest annual homicide rates among retail industries.
Houston averages about 1,000 robberies and 10 homicides at such stores annually.
There were 12 murders at Houston convenience stores in 2007, a 33 percent increase from 2006. So far this year, the Houston police department has recorded at least four murders at convenience stores.
As of last Friday, 158 stores had registered out of an estimated 2,000.
Houston police officers were still trying to spread the word to store owners that they needed to register.
For Zafar Said Rizwi and Luis Cera, two clerks at a Chevron convenience store in north Houston, the new requirements were news to them.
However, their store has already implemented some of the changes required by the new regulations: two panic alarms, surveillance cameras and new $7,000 bulletproof glass -- an expensive feature the ordinance does not require.
But what the clerks really want is increased police patrols in their neighborhood.
Rizwi, a 37-year-old immigrant from Pakistan, has been robbed at gunpoint, witnessed a stabbing, broken up drunken brawls and once had a woman high on cocaine come into the store and start taking off her clothes.
"It's that bad?" a customer who knocked on the new bulletproof glass on the countertop asked Rizwi.
"That bad," Rizwi responded.
Houston police officer Muzaffar Siddiqi said convenience stores make easy targets.
"There's cash handy. It's open late. It's easy to get in and out. So we have to make it difficult," he said.
Handi Stop clerk Ali Khan supports the enforcement of the new regulations.
"It's getting bad everywhere now," Khan said. "They have to push the owners to do safety."
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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