The San Diego County district attorney\u2019s office and the La Jolla Village Merchants Association will work together in coming weeks to get signs distributed to local businesses that they hope will deter thieves.<\/p>\n
District Attorney Summer Stephan was on hand at LJVMA\u2019s meeting Nov. 12 to swear in newly elected board members and provide insights into retail theft and its impacts.<\/p>\n
Several businesses in La Jolla\u2019s Village have experienced thefts recently. The Sunglass Hut store at 7931 Girard Ave. was targeted three times<\/a> within a week by \u201cgrab and go\u201d thefts of thousands of dollars worth of sunglasses Oct. 19, 20 and 24 in what San Diego police called unrelated incidents.<\/p>\n No one was in custody in connection with the thefts, police said.<\/p>\n There have been similar multiple thefts from select retailers in previous years. In a period in 2021 and early 2022, 24 burglaries were reported<\/a> in The Village. Bang & Olufsen, a since-closed high-end consumer electronics store on Girard Avenue, accounted for four of them.<\/p>\n LJVMA Executive Director Jodi Rudick said the upcoming holiday period is \u201ca big time for shoplifters,\u201d and Stephan noted \u201cvery similar concerns \u2026 in different communities\u201d countywide.<\/p>\n The impact of retail theft is \u201cmuch bigger than an economic loss,\u201d Stephan said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the hub of whether you feel safe or don\u2019t feel safe,\u201d she said. \u201cSafety is like a human right, so it\u2019s important that we keep focusing on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Stephan said signs are available for businesses to put in their windows indicating they are under the protection of the DA\u2019s office and local law enforcement. Thus, her office and LJVMA will work to get the signs to local merchants.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can blanket La Jolla so it feels like that operation [and] identification feeling you get in most neighborhoods,\u201d Rudick said. \u201cThat is what we are going to go for. We want [thieves] to come to La Jolla, look in the windows and \u2026 go somewhere else. We don\u2019t want crime anywhere, but we definitely want to make sure our members feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Other LJVMA news<\/p>\n New officers: Following the swearing-in of newly elected board members, the new board chose its leadership for the coming year.<\/p>\n Departing President AJ Johnson did not seek reelection and nominated Scott Blaul to be the next president. Johnson said it was \u201can honor and a privilege\u201d to have served but that he wanted to see \u201cfresh faces\u201d in the group\u2019s leadership. Blaul accepted the nomination and will preside for the next year.<\/p>\n Elnaz Iraj will continue as vice president, and Bill Podway will continue as treasurer.<\/p>\n Newly elected member Jessica Chepovsky will serve as secretary.<\/p>\n Next meeting: The next La Jolla Village Merchants Association meeting will begin a half-hour earlier than usual to accommodate the board\u2019s annual strategic planning session. The meeting will start at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the La Jolla\/Riford Library, 7555 Draper Ave. The agenda will be posted in advance at lajollabythesea.com<\/a>. \u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego County district attorney\u2019s office and the La Jolla Village Merchants Association will work together in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,930,5184,6804,74,84,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-51993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-la-jolla","10":"tag-la-jolla-light","11":"tag-la-jolla-light-news","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-county","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}