Queens has reached a level of grand larcenies not seen in 30 years

NY Post 

Queens is being hit hard by a dramatic surge in thefts this year — almost topping levels not seen since the NYPD started compiling statistics decades ago — and business owners are calling on cops to step up.

As of last Sunday, the borough had recorded 1,236 grand larcenies in 2022, which is only a few dozen shy of the tally logged during the same period in 1993, the earliest for which records are available, when 1,326 major thefts occurred, a Post analysis of police data shows.

A store manager of JMart on Main Street in Flushing told The Post his store loses up to $2,000 on any given day.

“I’ve never seen it like this before,” the manager, Lee said. “Maybe it’s the pandemic. It’s bad. Before you’d have one or two [ shoplifters] per week but now it’s like almost every day.”

This year’s tally is more than double what it was in the same time period last year and more than 40 percent over what it was two years ago. It’s also 75 percent more than 12 years ago. 

While grand larcenies have been up citywide, with police data showing a more than 60 percent uptick from last year and a 6 percent increase from pre-pandemic times, businesses owners in just a few Queens neighborhoods have been disproportionately hit harder.

Nearly half of the major thefts in the borough have been recorded in only three of the county’s 16 patrol areas.