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In February I wrote a blog about Wegmans grocery stores deciding not to sell tobacco products anymore. (View article) Last week there was a front page article in USA Today about pharmacies “putting out their smokes”.According to Wendy Koch of USA Today the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will approve a ban on city pharmacies from selling tobacco products, taking effect on October 1, 2008.  Ah, but you say this is San Francisco - one would expect nothing less from them.

According to USA Today similar Bills are pending in New Hampshire, Illinois and Tennessee with pharmacies that have walk-in clinics.  A Bill in New York would apply to all pharmacies, including industry giant WalMart. According to the article Wegmans was not the only grocer to remove tobacco product in February. New York- based chains Budwey’s and DeCicco Family Markets followed suit. Some ShopRite stores joined the bandwagon in March.

In the February blog piece I asked if this trend was going to catch on.  I have my answer.

Curtis Baillie, Principal Consultant - Security Consulting Strategies, LLC

Shame on you Wal-Mart and big box retailers as well as other stores who focus solely on profits and forsake the safety of their customers. Recently on a local Chicago news station customers of the no. 1 Fortune 500 company (Wal-Mart) had a rash of theft in their parking lots, and when the victims tried to get evidence from the video cameras, many were said to not be working, or never working at all. Check it out at http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=247256

Wal-Mart is not alone. There are other companies like Target and K-Mart that perhaps love those signs that announce the presence of video, but are they just a guise? Are dummy cameras still around and being used in these instances and many more around the country?

No cameras at Lane Bryant
Surely they have the money to install some modicum of security. Same with the Lane Bryant murders of several store associates and shoppers in February in Tinley Park, Ill. In this instance, they didn’t have security cameras at all. The police used surveillance tapes from surrounding stores in a two-mile radius, but without results. There are still no details in those murders in which five women were shot execution style.

A sixth woman, shot in the neck, escaped death by playing dead, according to news reports. She is currently in protective custody. She was the one who provided some details about the gunman so police artists could create a sketch and there were others who tried to provide identification.  But that provided a rendition only and not the truth, which is what a security camera brings to these incidents.

Come on retailers. Get with it! Technology doesn’t come cheap, but if your customers are dead, they obviously can’t shop anymore. By the way, if you can help the Tinley Park Police Department in Illinois solve the Lane Bryant crimes contact them. You might make someone’s Mother’s Day a bit more bearable.

–Deborah L. O’Mara, editor, Security Dealer & Integrator magazine

Here are some photos from last week’s NBFAA Day on Capitol Hill. (My full SIW report is here.)

Above: NBFAA President George Gunning addresses members during breakfast as the association’s lobbyist, John Chwat, looks on.

Above: Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) addresses the members during breakfast. He spoke about the importance of enabling the security industry to do federal background checks on people they hire in order to protect both themselves and their customers.

Above: Representative Michael Arcuri address members during lunch, thanking them for their commitment to security.

Above: NBFAA members gather for a group photo during lunch at Rayburn Building.

Above: A view of the Capitol Building from atop Honeywell’s headquarters at 101 Constitution Avenue.

Above: NBFAA President-Elect Mike Miller (left) shares a moment of solidarity with current NBFAA President George Gunning.

Above: From left to right: Zach DeWaters, VP, Chwat & Co., Inc.; John Chwat, President, Chwat & Co., Inc., and Director of Governmental Relations for NBFAA; Samantha DeBee, Director Governmental Relations, Chwat & Co., Inc.

Above: Honeywell, a $37 billion dollar company last year, gave NBFAA members a tour highlighting the company’s wide range of technologies and products.

Above: During the tour, Honeywell displayed a model city to showcase how its technologies work in the real world. (In the upper left-hand corner is an airplane; in the upper-right is a satellite.)

Stay tuned for a report in Security Dealer & Integrator as well!

-Greg

I’m a longtime student of interpreting body language and eye movements to determine if someone is telling the truth. During my law enforcement and retail loss prevention career I’ve had the opportunity to interview hundreds of employees suspected of dishonesty. Reading body language to determine truth is a science. Although there are numerous schools that teach the subject, the two main ones are W-Z and Associates  and John E. Reid and Associates.

Not long ago I spoke before an Interpersonal Relationship class at an American Management Association seminar about using neuro-linguistic movements to determine truthful and false statements. At the end of the first day I told the attendees to try an experiment at home to test what they had learned. Those with small children had them tell a bedtime store; one that the child knew well. They were told to look for right and left brain reactions as the child told the story. They then told their children to tell another bedtime store, this time making up the story as they went along. The next day the results were as I suspected. Many participated in the exercise and reported that they were astounded by what they had learned from their children. They now were able to, more accurately; determine when their children were telling them the truth. Many years ago I taught my wife this technique as she was really fustrated one day and asked me, “How do you always know when the kids are telling the truth?”

Try this with your children - you’ll be amazed by the results. Here’s a guide to use. Let me know about your results.

The following guide is reprinted with permission from W-Z & Associates -

Neuro-Linguistic Eye Movement - The eyes are used by each of us as we begin to recall or create information from our visual, auditory, or kinesic channels.  By determining which representational system a subject is using, the interviewer can ascertain whether or not the information is being recalled or created.

Eye movement of subject
Up and to the left:   visually recalling
Up and to the right:  visually creating
Straight across to the left:  recalling something heard
Straight across to the right:  creating something heard
Down and to the left:  internal dialogue
Down and to the right:  internal feelings, touch

- Curtis Baillie, Principal Consultant - Security Consulting Strategies, LLC

Back in Episode 23 of our SIW Radio podcast series, we discussed mobile device security as part of our “IT Basics for Physical Security Pros” series with Kevin Beaver, CISSP. One of the focuses of that audio program (which is now available through the iTunes store for free) was about devices like laptops and blackberries — which are the core business computing tools of today — are lacking even security like password-protection.

The thing about these devices is that they are so easily stolen. A criminal can throw a laptop under an arm or drop a Blackberry in a pocket. Such, it seems, was the case with a Mexican embassy official who attempted to steal Blackberries from White House staffers in late April. According to a report on Fox News’ website and an Associated Press report, the Mexican staffer simply grabbed some Blackberries that were left on a table outside a meeting room (security and custom dictate that these devices don’t get into high-level meetings with President Bush) and almost got away with it, were it not for surveillance video systems set up by the U.S. Secret Service.

Can you imagine the intelligence information that was sitting on that table? [Also check out a new blog post on this same White House Blackberries topic from our friend Kevin Beaver at his Security on Wheels blog.]

-Geoff