Sacramento News & Review
By Julian Cañete
From Sacramento, the message is that California is making progress on crime. But when I talk to the Hispanic business owners across our state, people who sacrificed, took risks, and built businesses to create opportunities for their families and communities, I hear a different story.
One issue that I regularly hear about is commercial, manufacturing, and industrial property crime and its impact on California’s economy is significant. Break-ins, equipment theft, cargo theft, vandalism, fuel theft, and trespassing affect many businesses across the state, from warehouses, farms, and construction firms to contractors, manufacturers, and trucking companies.
This type of crime is happening at a scale our official statistics don’t capture. Many business owners have stopped reporting break-ins, equipment theft, and vandalism because they don’t believe reporting will change the outcome. Others are discouraged by insurance deductibles, concerns about higher premiums, or the time required to navigate reporting processes.
As a result, the data understates the problem. And commercial, manufacturing, and industrial property crime rarely receives the same level of public attention as other public safety issues, such as retail crime.
The consequences extend far beyond damaged property. When a work truck is stolen, a contractor may miss jobs for weeks. When equipment disappears from a warehouse, production slows and customers wait longer. When businesses repeatedly absorb losses, owners are forced to redirect resources away from hiring, expansion, and investment.
For California’s more than 900,000 Hispanic-owned businesses, generating over $100 billion in annual revenue, recovering from those losses can be especially difficult. Many operate with less access to capital and fewer financial resources to absorb repeated setbacks.
That’s not just a challenge for individual business owners. It’s a challenge for California’s economy.
Small businesses make up 99.9% of all businesses in California, with more than 4.2 million operating across the state. Between roughly one-third and nearly half are minority-owned. Hispanic entrepreneurs, in particular, have become one of the state’s strongest engines of growth, opening businesses at remarkable rates, and bringing new investment and opportunity to communities across California.
These entrepreneurs have repeatedly demonstrated resilience in the face of challenges, but resilience should not be mistaken for an unlimited ability to absorb setbacks.
Business owners have already navigated inflation, workforce shortages, supply chain disruptions, and the lingering effects of the pandemic. They should be able to focus on growing their businesses, not recovering from preventable losses.
That’s why California’s response must focus on crime prevention. Policymakers have taken some steps in the right direction. AB 1622 (Rubio and Carrillo) would make permanent a streamlined permitting process for crime-prevention technology that has already helped hundreds of California businesses strengthen security and deter theft. It’s the kind of practical, bipartisan solution that recognizes prevention is often the most effective way to reduce and prevent crime.
While no single policy will solve every challenge, California should continue advancing commonsense measures that allow business owners to prevent crime rather than simply recover from it. Reducing those disruptions benefits everyone. Employees gain greater job stability, communities retain essential services and economic activity, and entrepreneurs can focus on growing their businesses instead of replacing stolen equipment, repairing property damage, or managing preventable losses.
For the state’s small businesses, especially those owned by Hispanic and other minority entrepreneurs, prevention is not a luxury; it is an economic necessity.
Hispanic entrepreneurs built their businesses against the odds and have helped power California’s economy and create opportunity for countless families. They shouldn’t have to fight commercial property crime on top of everything else. They deserve a state that is equally committed to protecting what they have worked so hard to build.
Julian Cañete is the President & CEO of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce