{"id":6652,"date":"2026-08-15T23:08:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=6652"},"modified":"2026-08-15T23:08:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T23:08:48","slug":"socialist-ny-lawmaker-emily-gallagher-says-shoplifting-for-biological-need-is-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=6652","title":{"rendered":"Socialist NY lawmaker Emily Gallagher says shoplifting for ‘biological need’ is OK"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

It\u2019s her \u2018steal\u2019 of approval.<\/p>\n

A Brooklyn socialist lawmaker declared this week that shoplifters have a right to swipe items like soap and toothpaste from local stores without getting busted \u2014 because of their \u201cbiological need\u201d for the products.<\/p>\n

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State Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher strongly suggested shoplifting should be legalized while joined at a on Thursday by other lefty pols and criminal justice advocates with Court Watch NYC. The group claimed it monitored 360 arraignments over four days and found\u00a0more than half were for misdemeanor offenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you\u2019re stealing those things, you need them,\u201d said Gallagher, who reps Greenpoint and other sections of woke northern Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we are choosing to protect billion-dollar companies, like CVS and Walgreens, over the people who are struggling to get by. So I would say that the true crime is that there is such incredible wealth disparity in this city that there are people who can be thrown in jail simply for having a biological need.\u201d<\/p>\n

The card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America said she would continue to push for \u201ctreatment-not-jail\u201d punishments \u2013 all but ignoring that first-time shoplifting offenders rarely get jailtime and that lack of enforcement pushed by lefty pols like herself statewide has forced many drugstores to lock products in plastic cases.<\/p>\n

She and other pols at the event also called on fellow socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani to follow through on his campaign promise to end \u201cbroken windows policing\u201d tactics by NYPD cops that target quality-of-life crimes like graffiti and fare evasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shoppers on Saturday at Food Universal supermarket in The Bronx\u2019s Co-op City told The Post they were aghast over Gallagher\u2019s remarks, which give license to stealing and drive up costs for law-abiding customers<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s foolish to think\u00a0one should not be punished for stealing. It is a crime,\u201d said Rev. Susan Webb, 68. <\/p>\n

\u201cMamdani can implement that in his [city-run grocery] stores, so if you don\u2019t have the necessities, you can go there and get them for free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanctioning retail theft will also drive up crime stats, which as of Aug. 9 show retail theft down 14.7% and petit larceny is down 5.4%, compared to last year at this time, according to the NYPD.<\/p>\n

Jeanette Mack, a 49-year-old academic adviser, agreed, saying Gallagher and other far-left pol\u2019s soft-on-crime policies are \u201cridiculous\u201d because \u201cthey are enabling [shoplifters] instead of helping them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are going to feel entitled because they know they can walk in and walk out and nothing will happen,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAllowing people to shoplift with no consequence is wrong. I\u2019m a single mom and at one time I had four jobs. I would never think of stealing anything.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey already closed a Rite Aid [drug store] around here.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m worried that if they put that in place, they are definitely going to close this supermarket, and I would suffer because I\u2019d have to drive to somewhere else instead of walking. And gas price nowadays, that\u2019s another thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwin Pichado, 33, a manager for the supermarket, said Gallagher is living in a fantasy world.<\/p>\n

\u201cRent is high.\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to pay workers, utilities. Goods going out, but no money coming in. We cannot run a business like that. If they see that you do nothing, they\u2019ll keep coming back. They tell their friends, and it becomes\u00a0a free for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallagher has a long history of bizarre actions and remarks since being sworn into the state in Assembly in January 2021, including using a GoFundMe campaign in October 2021 to raise money for her cat Roland\u2019s emergency surgery bill. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s also racked up dozens of traffic and parking tickets despite pushing an anti-car agenda in Albany. And she has allegedly blocked constituents from posting comments she doesn\u2019t like on her social media pages.<\/p>\n

In 2024 Gallagher attended an anti-Israel phone bank sponsored by\u00a0the\u00a0New Jersey chapter of American Muslims for Palestine,\u00a0whose leaders have espoused vile antisemitic rhetoric and are\u00a0under investigation by Virginia\u2019s attorney general\u00a0for potentially funding terrorists.<\/p>\n

Her bizarre behavior started long before she was elected to office.<\/p>\n

In 2003, while she was still a student at Ithaca College, she boasted about her immature antics \u2014 including mooning a couple she spied having sex, not to mention throwing a \u201chomeless party\u201d \u2014 in an online journal that came to light during her 2020 campaign where she defeated longtime Democratic incumbent Joe Lentol.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Critics scorched Gallagher\u2019s latest remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like Emily Gallagher try to obfuscate reality because they want to enable this very activity,\u201d Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) wrote on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know it\u2019s devastating to retail stores and that\u2019s the point \u2014 they\u2019re communists and want to use crime to force these stores to close. It\u2019s social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSoon enough we\u2019ll be hearing about the need for government-run drug stores to replace the shops they drove out of business,\u201d she added.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Queens Councilman Robert Holden was even more blunt.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201c[Gallagher] is a major dope,\u201d\u00a0wrote the moderate Democrat.<\/p>\n

Gallagher did not return a request for comment by The Post.<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) told The Post\u00a0that Gotham businesses are already struggling to keep their lights on \u2014 and politicians \u201cnow advocating for thievery is going to push even more of them to close shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the kind of backwards, left-wing lunacy I would expect from someone who values the rights of criminals more than those of business owners,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cPolicies that Gallagher is pushing are exactly what\u2019s driving so many of them away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more California high school students given Qurans, encouraged to wear hijabs during class trip to mosque: suit<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Brooklyn socialist lawmaker proclaimed this week that shoplifters have a right to steal items like soap and toothpaste from local drugstores without getting arrested because they have a \u201cbiological need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro"],"yoast_head":"\nSocialist NY lawmaker Emily Gallagher says shoplifting for 'biological need' is OK - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=6652\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Socialist NY lawmaker Emily Gallagher says shoplifting for 'biological need' is OK - 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