Rip-Off Rash Alarms Square Merchants

A sign next to the door of the Harvard Bookstore proclaims, 'We are not capitalist pigs, Stealing from us is not liberating anyone."

The sentiment behind that sign is typical of the feelings of many small businessmen in Harvard Square. They have seen, in recent months, a sharp increase in stealing from their stores, and many can't understand why.

"We used to have a tremendous rapport with students and people in Cambridge," Harvard Bookstore owner Frank S. Kramer said yesterday. "Not with the ones whose fathers paid their Coop bills for them, but the ones who wanted to shop around for a good deal on a used book. Now we're just another capitalist. There isn't that same rapport anymore."

Kramer estimates that the Harvard Bookstore loses $20,000 to shoplifters annually, out of a total business of $300,000. He says that stealing has increased tremendously since he took over the ownership of the Bookstore in 1962.

"Look, a lot of students and kids around here are against capitalism, so they feel it's okay to steal from stores. And these kids are so against capitalism they don't care if some stores are different, if some stores try to be helpful and provide services to their customers," he said.

Other stores around the Square have had similar problems.

"There've been a lot of handbags stolen in here, and some coats, too," one employee at Hungry Charley's said yesterday. "It's the phony hippies and the local junkies that are doing it," he added.

Hungry Charley's has had to take steps to limit its clientele in an attempt to reduce shoplifting.

Kramer, too, has had to take protective measures at the Harvard Bookstore. At a cost of $50 per month, he's added a closed circuit television which surveys customers in the store. He also has a sign next to the door asking customers to stop and check their books before entering the main part of the store.

"I hated to do it," Kramer said. "But, we don't make so much money that we're not affected if someone steals a book."

Kramer says he will call the police if he catches someone stealing. "I have to make it clear to someone who steals a book that there's a hassle involved," he says.

The manager of the Minute Man Record store disagrees. "Sure, we've got a lot of stealing like anyone else, but there's no percentage in prosecuting the people who steal. We're just trying to educate our employees to teach them to detect shoplifters," he said.

Sheldon Cohen, the owner of the Out-of-Town Ticket Agency, organized the Harvard Square Businessmen's Association last summer, as a response to the rash of trashing and looting that swept through the Square. His group asked the Cambridge City Council to employ more police in the Square, and to try to eliminate street people.

Kramer, Boynton, and many of the smaller, less-established merchants in the Square have not joined the group, feeling that it does not understand the fundamental problems behind the stealing.

"There's a different kind of atmosphere around here than there used to be," Kramer said. "I used to really like it here. Now it's really hard to run a business, deal with people nicely, and still sell all the books that go out the door."