Customers of this Dollar Tree store in St. Louis are greeted with the following signs located on the main entry door:
Here’s how I interpret the above: Welcome, honored guests, but it you rip us off, we’ll throw your ass in the slammer before you can even utter “Merry Christmas.”
Reminds me of the practice in certain stores to check your receipt as you are leaving the store. The stores say it's to ensure that you got everything you paid for, and that you paid the correct price. Customers realize it's to make sure that you paid for everything in your cart. Regardless, it's the same mentality that you point out. Expect more of this type of thinly veiled threats– shoplifting appears to be up some 8% in North America as a result of the recession.