Thursday February 19th 2026
Artur Zieleniewski, 44, said he loses at least £500 per month to shoplifters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Joe Sullivan
An Edinburgh shopkeeper has said more police action is needed and laws need to be changed in order to fight a surge in shoplifting in the city.
Artur Zieleniewski, 44, owns the Techspace360 technology store on Shandwick Place, and says his shop loses at least £500 a month – ‘but often much more’ – from the practice.
And he said Police Scotland’s response times often left much to be desired, as he feels he has little way to fight the epidemic.
Meanwhile, a top city cop has said the service’s dedicated retail crime task force is working on dealing with theft from shops.
It all comes as data recently released by Police Scotland showed there were 27 shoplifting incidents a day on average between April and September last year – up almost 24% from the year prior.
More than the financial loss of shoplifting, Artur noted that teenagers could be hard to deal with – throwing cola and spitting on employees, and throwing eggs at their building.
He said: “We are a small shop, we need to be careful. We are not Tesco or, you know, Primark, where we can lose lots of valuable items.”
“Good thieves are the best ones, you won’t even notice them. They’re very good with this, I think in the past couple months we’ve seen much more activity.
“These people are smart, and they know what they’re doing. So they take it, they leave us, and we notice it too late.”
Artur, who opened the shop in July 2023, then walked over to a shelf holding a set of expensive headphones, which sits right in the line of sight of the shop’s long glass counter.
Blocking the shelf with his body, he swiftly pulled a pair of headphones away, and quickly adjusted the surrounding boxes to help conceal the change in appearance.
He continued: “You notice the gap [in the shelf]. And by the time you do, they’re already down the street.”
“One time it happened to me, when a lady was taking some headphones” – he intimated her taking the product – “at the end of the day, she bought something to distract my attention.”
He said police response times and reactions were not good enough for traditional shoplifting, even with the firm ‘doing the job for them’ with having effective CCTV coverage.
Artur added that he had learned how to spot shoplifters better with time, and that certain clothing items and accessories made sneaking expensive merchandise out easier.
Sagar Madiyal, 29, a worker at the shop, said another major issue was young people attempting to steal small items, usually vapes, and harassing staff.
He said the police response to this was even worse, especially in response to the harassment.
He said: “There were seven, eight kids in here one day, creating a problem here. So we said, ‘you can’t behave like that’.
“They’re grabbing random things, some girls are trying to enter the counter and grab vapes. We got them outside, but they blocked the entryway.
“And I call the police, and they ask, ‘did they damage anything, did they steal anything’? I said no, but they’re not letting customers in. ‘Oh, it’s not a crime, we can’t do anything.’”
Sagar said he felt it was ‘ridiculous’, and that he felt it was driving away legitimate customers due to their presence. He added the issue was worse late at night.
The business has a policy of only allowing one young person into the shop at a time.
Artur questioned aloud: “They call the police, and unless they do any harm, they can’t come. And what’s that going to do? So it’s not police. Who should we contact? Nobody.”
Expanding on the issues teenagers pose, he said: “They bought a box of eggs, throwing them across the road, and they were hitting our window.
“Do you know how hard it is to clean frozen egg off a window? It’s sugar, it’s very sticky, I had to use lots of chemicals. And what can I do?”.
Both mentioned their frustration with their effective helplessness at combating shoplifters who come to the shop.
Artur said shopkeepers should be allowed to lock suspected shoplifters inside their store when caught, given that police response times can be so inconsistent.
And Sagar concurred with Artur in saying that it was frustrating needing to be exceptionally careful in blocking people trying to enter the store or go behind the counter without doing anything that could be construed as assault.
Sagar added that customers in store can sometimes be more useful at addressing shoplifting than Police Scotland.
He described how four teenagers were trying to get into a glass case holding expensive electronic devices.
Sagar said: “There was an American customer, I think a gym body-builder, a very big guy. And he said, ‘you just do your job, I’ll handle them’.
“And he just took the four of them and asked them to leave the shop. [The teenagers] said ‘oh, you can’t touch me, you can’t touch me’. But that guy helped us.”
He added police response times were even worse when it came to harassment by young people, with responses often taking 30 minutes.
Both Sagar and Artur expressed frustration that, often, in cases of harassment, the police would only take action if there was physical harm to a person or damage to property.
Police Superintendent Kathryn Fairfield said the service was ‘aware’ of the impact shoplifting has on Edinburgh communities.
She added there is ‘no excuse’ for retail crime, and that the service had used part of a £3m fund from Holyrood last year to target theft from stores in Edinburgh.
Supt Fairfield continued: “Taskforce officers work within Edinburgh to support local policing colleagues in engaging with stores to offer security advice and identify opportunities for crime prevention.
“They will also target repeat offenders of retail crime by using analytical data and intelligence to carry out proactive enforcement activities in areas most heavily impacted.
“Anyone who has concerns about shoplifting in their area is encouraged to contact police by calling 101 as soon as possible.”
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