"Unmanned" village store sees increased thievery
Eighteen months ago, a small village store in South Jeolla Province opened its doors. But no new workers had been hired for the occasion: the store was "unmanned," open 24 hours without any cashier, reliant on the honesty of customers to pay for what they had taken off the shelves. But last week, the village’s utopian dream had to face reality: the store is still unmanned, but the lens of a closed-circuit TV camera now prowls the interior. Shinchon Village in Jangseong-gun has about 300 residents living in 68 households. The village began the store by investing 3 million won (US$3,000). Park Chung-ryeol, 77, village head, said that things were going fine until about January, when less honest denizens began to pilfer products here and there. Things took a further turn for the worse this August, when a TV show did a special on the unique store. At first, the store’s newfound attention, with visitors pouring in daily, led to the village choosing to enlarge the store.But one day, a box of instant noodles and a bottle of soju disappeared off the shelf without renumeration. On another day, the store’s cigarette vending machine was prised open and its contents plundered. "We started this store with a valuable purpose, but since August, the store has recorded a deficit of about 1 million won every month," Park said. He thinks that the thieves are not from the village, but people who have heard about the store and drive there to "shop." But Park maintained the store would stay "unmanned," adding that he installed the 5-million-won CCTV because all the villagers were "too busy" to manage the store. At the entrance of the village, the old sign which read, "We are running an unmanned store" has been replaced with a new notice saying, "Out of necessity, due to the situation, we must temporarily employ a closed-circuit TV." [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
