I see it as a shop manager doing what the police and the thief's parents never did and actually punishing him for breaking the law. We're not talking about a poor guy trying to steal some food to get by, he's taking thousands of dollars worth of behind-the-counter merchandise to make a profit for himself. You probably think "oh well they have insurance" but when the insurance company pay out thousands for the lost merchandise, who do you think picks up the bill? The 7-11 does. Who do they pass that bill on to? The paying customer. So theft from this shop is theft from everyone who legitimately uses this shop. Then when those people see that prices here are double what they are at the supermarket, they don't shop here anymore, the store closes and the community is out of another resource.

The way I see it, the shopkeepers are not bootlickers at all, they're ensuring a community resource isn't lost, along with their own jobs, and that profiteering theves think twice about trying to do this again.