Looking behind him, a man on a bike pedals in the wrong direction down Marsh Street and swerves left onto Chorro Street, cutting in front of a large white truck, which stops abruptly. Hanging a right into the Chase Bank parking lot, the rider drops a jacket.
Adam Kemp, who was filming the whole thing, picks it up.
“I will catch you if you steal,” the caption below his post on Instagram states.
Kemp, owner of downtown SLO’s Thrifty Beaches, was on a Onewheel (hoverboard) chasing the bike rider, who had stolen that jacket from the 26,350-square-foot vintage clothing shop downtown. The chase went viral on the shop’s Instagram page with nearly 400,000 likes.
Videos like that are a staple on Thrifty Beaches’ Instagram because Kemp often chases down thieves on his hoverboard and confronts them to return stolen clothing.
“What inspired me to do that was not being a sustainable thing to keep having people just take whatever they want,” Kemp told New Times. “And, you know, I started this with no backing, no nothing—like just pure insanity. So, to me, it just doesn’t make sense. Like, I’m not a corporation, I’m just a dude, so I can’t afford to have things just walk out the door for free.”
He said he was experiencing theft at least once a day after opening Thrifty Beaches’ new location on Higuera Street in September 2024. That’s when Kemp realized he needed to do something and started posting the videos.
Last November, Californians voted to do something about petty thefts as well, passing Proposition 36 in an effort to help businesses like Kemp’s.
Passed by nearly 70 percent of voters, Proposition 36 unwinds the rules behind 2014’s Proposition 47, which made petty theft (less than $950) a misdemeanor rather than a felony. Proposition 36 makes stealing a felony if that person has two or more past convictions for certain crimes like carjacking, burglary, or shoplifting.
SLO Deputy Police Chief Fred Mickel said the recently passed proposition is a good tool and hopes that yearly crime statistics will reflect a decrease in offenses.
“There is now the ability for us to go out and hold those accountable for the repeat offenders, right? Prop. 36 is looking at the smash-and-grabs or the drug crimes or those types of things,” he said. “We’re not seeing [offenders] turn around the minute they get out of jail and go just continue to do this behavior [now] that there is more of a deterrent.”
Mickel said that petty theft may have increased in SLO because Proposition 47 offered few consequences.
“We saw a large increase in crime and the property crime type of stuff,” he said, explaining that there had been no “teeth” in the law under Proposition 47. “And so there was no deterrent. There were these folks that were out committing these crimes repetitively, and it would be the same name a lot of times, and it would almost be the next day, they’re committing similar crimes.”
Although the proposition only went into effect last December, Mickel said SLO is already seeing a decrease in petty theft.
Confronting shoplifters is dangerous, he added, and should be left to law enforcement.
“We recommend you be a good witness and you call the police and trust us to do our job to go ahead and find this criminal and arrest them and prosecute them,” he said. “Chasing them down, even though that might be exciting to put out on social media, I think it can be dangerous. We want them to trust the police to do their job.”
The Hope Chest Emporium in Atascadero loses about $1,000 in stolen goods per month, said owner Karen McNamara. She eventually decided to install cameras and post “Smile, you’re on camera” signs in the 6,000-square-foot shop, which hosts vendors selling antiques, collectibles, and furniture.
“I have multiple vendors, and many of them have come to me and said, ‘Hey, this was stolen, that was stolen,’ and so we tried locking down the more valuable things,” she said. “But there’s a lot of theft of little items that people think, ‘Oh, it’s inconsequential if I take a $5 ring,’ or whatever, so they steal a lot of little stuff.”
After the shop confirms a theft by reviewing camera footage, Hope Chest Emporium posts photos of the thief on its Facebook page, asking if anyone knows the culprit.
“We have caught them by posting on social media four times in the last year and a half,” she said. “We have posted a video and caught four different individuals that have stolen, and they all did because they were identified—they all did. Then a family member came back and either paid for the item or returned it.”
Both Hope Chest and Thrifty Beaches have been criticized for their methods. McNamara said Hope Chest Emporium received heat on its Facebook page after being accused of suspecting an innocent customer of stealing.
“Just so everyone knows, I am the owner of the store, The Hope Chest Emporium, that is being blasted for the recent incident that was NOT made public until a friend posted online,” McNamara posted to the Everything Atascadero page on April 7.
The post had 287 reactions and 244 comments, ranging from support for the small business and criticism over a situation where shop employees followed a suspected thief out into the parking lot.
“The question among the staff was, did she steal it? Because it was in her basket. And she returned the basket empty. She had a bag. It wasn’t huge, but she had a bag. And so, there’s always that thought of, ‘Man, did you take that?'” McNamara told New Times.
When confronted, the person said they had set the item down in the shop, and “that was the end of it,” McNamara said.
“I don’t care about cameras, but I would be very uncomfortable being followed around a store or accused of stealing because I decided not to buy an item,” read one comment on the April 7 Facebook post.
After all the theft and high rent, McNamara told New Times she won’t be renewing her lease in 18 months and will report shoplifting to the police.
Thrifty Beaches owner Kemp said he was criticized for his risky shoplifter chase through traffic for “just a jacket,” and some have accused him of being “anti-homeless.”
“You get a real dose of reality when you own a business because it’s not so cut-and-dry. It’s not like you make money, you go home to your sweet-ass house, and you know it’s like the thing that you’re like, rolling in,” he said. “You also get the flip side of people that are really struggling. You see, like, how grim life can be sometimes for other people.
“It’s a balance making money and having a heart. It’s so tough.”
After some of the chases he’s filmed, Kemp said he’s later brought some of the people clothing they needed, like jackets or warm clothes.
“If people are in a desperate situation, I’m more than happy to deck them out with whatever they want. Like, we just did a shopping spree for a man. He was homeless,” Kemp said. “I’m always willing to help, but it’s disrespectful to just go in and take something that’s not yours.” Δ
Reach Staff Writer Libbey Hanson at lhanson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Apr 17-27, 2025.