In-store visits to places like Walmart have become less pleasant in recent years.

That’s not a slam on the retail vibe.

Instead, it’s how the retailer has been forced to stop massive product “shrinkage” — the name the woke crowd gives to shoplifting.

More and more items from expensive flea medicine for dogs to basic hair care products are being locked behind glass doors.

The specific items that get the lockdown treatment vary from store to store.

Tracy, as an example, has some items locked down that Manteca doesn’t and vice versa,

It’s clear.

Retail theft hurts us all.

Even so, it can be such a pain to deal with that it is turning more and more people off from either shopping at a specific store or doing in-person shopping altogether.

You know the drill.

You want to purchase an item as inexpensive as a $5 hair care product.

But there is a locked glass door separating you from what you want.

So you push a button.

Then you wait. And wait. And wait.

Sometimes a clerk that Walmart has entrusted with a key comes fairly soon.

Most of the time it is several minutes.

And there are more than a few times it turns into 5 minutes or more.

One of three things happens.

Either you invest time waiting.

You go on a hunt for the Walmart clerk with the magical key.

Or you walk away and opt to stop at a competitor to buy the product instead.

That doesn’t make you happy.

Nor does it benefit Walmart.

That said, technology is on the way to help.

Walmart is testing out “smart keys” on smartphones to open glass cabinets.

It is being used at 400 or so locations by Walmart employees to test its effectiveness and to troubleshoot issues.

If it works, the smart keys will be accessible to loyalty members.

Clearly, there is technology involved that allows Walmart to track who is opening cases right down to where they live thanks to data the loyalty program collects.

If the system proves effective, Walmart will roll it out to many, if not all, of their 4,600 stores.

Locking things up behind glass doors is nothing new.

Walmart was doing it 30 years ago with everything from spray paint to Trac II razor cartridges.

But in recent years as shoplifting and organized retail theft skyrocketed, more and more products have been put behind locked glass doors.

It is not unusual for chains such as Walgreens and CVS with locations in large cities such as San Francisco often have the majority of their products in some sections of their stores under lock and key.

This is frustrating for paying customers.

And it is labor intensive — read that expensive — for the retailer.

The decriminalization of shoplifting in more “progressive” states led by California has become epidemic.

Of course, the forces of woke say the numbers are exaggerated and there are other reasons for shrinkage losses via employee theft, breakage, and such.

But it is also true shoplifting has not only become blatant but also rampant in California.

It is little wonder why Proposition 36 on Tuesday’s ballot won by a landslide.

And to be clear, it is a measured adjustment of thefts below $950 that had become mere citation issuance events and not felonies.

It is not a return to the Three Strikes, lock them up for 10 years after the third shoplifting offense.

Instead, it takes a middle ground to punishment that fits crimes.

As an added bonus it adds criminal culpability for those who traffic in fentanyl when one of the people that uses what they supply dies.

If personal responsibility is anti-woke, then so be it.

To be clear Walmart et al are not only going after shoplifters.

They have been changing self-checkout line protocols and technology to go after consumers who knowingly, or inadvertently, don’t scan all items.

The solution is reducing the maximum number of items one customer can scan.

That allows for more efficient monitoring.

But the real winner is technology that uses scales that require a product to be placed in a tray before the next item can be scanned.

Initially, it is frustrating.

But one you get used to it such as the system that Food-4-Less uses, it isn’t any issue.

The change is good for not just the bottom line of the retailer but the consumer as well.

All losses a business incurs —  just like taxes they pay for things most of us can’t imagine — are collapsed into the price of goods we pay for.

And if the losses become too rampant for businesses to absorb, they can end up closing down causing communities to lose places to shop.

The only loser are those relaying on retail theft to either “make a living” or support substance abuse habits.

No one is thrilled about locking up products and having to run down a clerk to open cases.

And needing a smartphone to shop as well as joining a customer loyalty program to do so, might not make us happy.

But the bottom line is passive measures designed to reduce crime are the most cost effective way to do so.

It also reduces problematic confrontations that can be unsafe.

Rest assured, there will always be criminals out there that can find ways to outsmart or game the system.

However, if the right amount of technology is wedded with reasonable consequences as Proposition 36 will impose, we will have the key to significantly reducing low-level crime.

And it’s low-level crime that impacts all of us.

If shoplifting isn’t brought under control, it will mean less options for law-abiding citizens.

The product lockup right now is beyond inconvenient at times.

The smart key technology will reduce it to less than a mere adjustment in how we shop.

It will be no more intrusive on our shopping experiences than how one now has to scan items at Food-4-Less.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com