Local merchants lose hundreds of thousands of dollars – sometimes much more – every year to shoplifting.

It’s a problem exacerbated by the lack of serious consequences for those caught. That might change soon.

Pueblo City Manager Sam Azad spoke with City Council recently about a proposed pilot program that would send repeat larceny offenders out of Pueblo County to serve their sentences.

“The largest component of larceny is really the shoplifting,” Azad said. “So the way that we have been dealing with that is we pick up these folks that shoplift and they get basically a few days at the county jail. And because of the overcrowding .?.?. they may or may not serve those few days, and they all know that.

Read more at The Pueblo Chieftain.