• Jaybob32@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    2 days ago

    This is bad. But what really struck me was that a hotel had a guard? Do you have guards EVERYWHERE?

    • unsettlinglymoist@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      8 hours ago

      Not sure if you’re being serious, but yeah we have guards pretty much everywhere in the US, particularly in cities. We also have guards at grocery stores (usually multiple guards, and they’re usually cops in uniform hired by the store) and at discount stores and sometimes on buses and trains. I’ve even seen them at convenience stores and cell phone shops. My apartment building has an armed guard on site with their own police-clone patrol SUV from like 10pm to 6am every night, I’ve had to call them a couple times and they arrive faster than the cops.

      The US is a violent removed and the guards primarily keep away sketchy troublemakers (except in larger stores where they’re useless and only used to deter shoplifting).

      • Jaybob32@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        6 hours ago

        Yes serious question. I live in Canada, at most you might see mall security. Just people with a uniform. No weapons. Anywhere else it would be strange to see “guards”. It’s been a while since I was state side. But if it’s become this common the United States has serious problems.

    • espentan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      43
      ·
      2 days ago

      Reminded me of a comment a colleague made during a hotel stay in the US, “they got six people greeting me as I enter the lobby but no one to fix my shower”.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      In the US? Only if there’s money.

      Guards are only to protect assets not people. When I used to Metro in the Pentagon you would see four or five armed guards with m4s and body armor protecting the carts of the money for the Metro machines. They could give two shits about anyone else.

    • Horsey@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      Tucson here: armed and unarmed guards are really common at low-class-linked businesses like thrift stores, Fry’s supermarkets, Walmart, Dollar stores, Walgreens/CVS. God forbid someone steal food or pharmacy items like shavers (shaver cartridges here are crazy expensive if you get name brand). Walgreens/CVS also has a tendency to lock the shelves behind plexiglass so you have to ask for help to buy more expensive items.

      In some cases, these kind of stores are targeted specifically. There are shopping centers with higher end restaurants that coexist with super high theft locations literally within walking distance.

      TLDR: it’s mostly to abate crimes of poverty