A California city is cracking down on shoplifters with a first-of-its-kind rule dramatically restricting self-checkouts.

Long Beach passed the “Safe Stores are Staffed Stores” in September, which requires large grocery stores and pharmacies to have at least one staff member monitoring every three self-checkout stations, the Los Angeles Times reported .

Many stores say they’ve been forced to simply shut down self-checkouts altogether because they can’t hire the staff to meet the new rules.

“We are currently unable to operate our self-checkout lanes,” read a recently posted sign at a downtown Long Beach supermarket, blaming “a new City of Long Beach ordinance.”

The city — located on the Pacific coast just south of Los Angeles — is one of countless across the US that has seen an enorm

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