Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push to crackdown on spiraling retail crime was a focus Thursday as her state budget deal with lawmakers started its crawl from the boardroom into reality.
After weeks of maneuvering — which included announcing a preliminary $237 billion budget that backed state lawmakers into a corner — some of the first measures heading to lawmakers’ desks included a get-tough plan against shoplifters and thugs who assault retail workers.
“We know how to reverse trends,” Hochul said at a news conference at her Manhattan office Thursday. “That’s why I don’t want hopeless about what has happened with retail theft.”
The measure had been staunchly opposed by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, before the Bronx Democrat caved in amid mounting pressure.
Heastie has held fast to the belief that stiffer penalties don’t deter crime but in the end, he said he was “fine” with budget provisions.
That includes measures that make attacking a retail worker a felony, allow prosecutors to punch up charges by combining the value of merchandise stolen from different stores and make the fencing of stolen goods a misdemeanor.
“We got it done exactly the way we hoped for,” Hochul said Thursday. “Going from a misdemeanor to a felony [for assaulting a worker] was a dramatic change for a lot of people in our legislature who wanted to leave it as a misdemeanor.”
She didn’t get everything, of course.
The penalties for going after a retail worker are still less than those for attacking other so-called frontline workers, such as nurses and firefighters.
The state will also crack down on illegal pot shops by giving towns the ability to get a civil order to close unlicensed shops, inspect suspected illegal setups, levy hefty fines against those who sell weed without a license and strip shops of their tobacco, lottery and liquor licenses if they’re caught.
It’s an abrupt about-face for lawmakers, who earlier this week derided Hochul’s surprise budget announcement — including her awkward description that the deal had the “parameters of a conceptual agreement.”
By Thursday, it seemed that the governor had the last laugh.
“It looks like she’s pushing them around now,” former Gov. David Paterson told The Post.
Paterson said Hochul appears more comfortable wielding executive power — and it showed this time around.
“This is a turning point,” Paterson said. “In terms of a grade, I’d give her an ‘A.’”
The former gov also gave Hochul credit for not abandoning her grand plan to ramp up the housing supply after the wheels fell off last year.
“She came back with a better way to do it,” Paterson said.
Senate and Assembly leaders said they’d introduce the remaining bills that make up the budget on Friday.
They plan to finish voting by the end of the weekend.
