Kiri Hannafin, Countdown's Manager of Corporate Affairs, spoke to RNZ's Nine to Noon about the supermarket's safety concerns.
There have been 2533 verbal abuse events in the last three months, around 180 per week. Hannafin estimated there would be over 1,000 unreported verbal abuse incidents per week.
"What really concerns us is the kind of nature of the abuse. There is general abuse and swearing. But also threats to kill, threats to come back after work and wait for them when they finish their shift, sexual abuse, homophobia, racial abuse, threats to use a weapon -quite significant and serious hate crimes."
About 24 percent of the abuse is caused by shoplifting. Then there is abuse for mask mandates, product complaints, payment complaints, queue wait time and customers under the influence. But most abuse comes with no reasoning - just angry and aggressive people.
All Countdown stores and carparks have security cameras, but they do not capture verbal abuse, which typically happens at the checkout. New cameras they are considering trialling will capture verbal attacks, so it will not be 'he said she said' to the police.
"It is absolutely fair for New Zealand to ask questions of our business and to be frustrated about the cost of living. I completely understand that - it's tough, it really is. But the people at the checkout are not responsible for any of this."
