They can’t say they weren’t warned. Puebloans who help themselves to a five-finger discount at local shops at last will face swift justice following a decision by the Pueblo City Council Monday to lock up the city’s proliferating shoplifters. Justice probably would come even more swiftly if the miscreants didn’t first have to make the 70-plus mile trip up I-25 to the lockup in Douglas County.

That’s where there’s room – there’s none in Pueblo County’s jail, council members were told previously – so according to the Pueblo Chieftain’s Peter Roper, Pueblo will pay the DougCo facility to house convicted shoplifters for up to 10 days at a time. The city agreed to budget up to $50,000 to cover the rent.

Pueblo Municipal Court Judge Carla Sikes has told council she has nowhere to sentence multitime offenders because the Pueblo County jail is overcrowded and won’t accept prisoners simply on a city complaint like shoplifting.

… Councilman Chris Nicoll said being able to sentence offenders to jail was necessary.

“This kind of petty crime is taking its toll,” he said. “These (shoplifters) just keep going through this revolving door.”

Yet, as we reported not long ago, it may come as news to DougCo taxpayers that there’s room in their jail for Pueblo’s less-than-finest. This is the same Douglas County whose Board of Commissioners recently rejected a proposal by one of its members to ask county voters to shift some revenue from a longtime jail tax toward upgrading the county’s chronically congested stretch of I-25.

The commission majority voted down the pitch after Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock argued the money was needed to assure public safety.

Evidently, that includes Pueblo’s public safety.