OLD AND BUSTED: “Kids in Cages.”
The New Hotness? Meat in Cages! California Walmart locks up pricey meat to fight shoplifting.
First it was spray paint. Then eye drops. Now, even ground beef is under lock and key.
A San Jose Walmart has reportedly taken anti-theft measures to a new level, placing pricey cuts of beef and even packages of ground meat inside metal security cages to keep would-be shoplifters at bay.
Influencer Tony Bartleson — better known online as “Meatdad” — posted a video from inside the California store showing rib-eye steaks and ground beef wrapped in wire security devices.
Holding up a cowboy rib-eye priced at nearly $16 a pound, Bartleson quipped: “Welcome to California.”
The video also showed a three-pound package of ground beef locked inside its own metal cage. The clip has racked up more than 3.8 million views.
Bartleson said he was stunned by the response.
“Seeing basic food items locked behind cages is sad,” Bartleson said in a statement to The Sun.
“My hope is that we can get to a point where measures like this aren’t necessary anymore—where people don’t have to steal just to eat, stores don’t have to lock up food, and everyone has reliable access to the necessities they need.”
“I think most of us want to live in a world where people can put food on the table with dignity, and I hope we continue moving in that direction,” he added.
It’s not so much the wire around the meat, as the anti-theft tag attached to it, which trigger the store’s alarm if someone tries to tamper with it, or shoplift it.
Supermarket takes drastic action to prevent meat theft: 'Welcome to California' https://t.co/oVOgqIohiA pic.twitter.com/lKF1YeqcGN
— New York Post (@nypost) July 18, 2026
Mr. “Meatdad” was quoted above saying, “I think most of us want to live in a world where people can put food on the table with dignity, and I hope we continue moving in that direction.” No, thanks to leftists in Sacramento, California is moving away from that direction. In December of 2022, Virginia Postrel wrote in the Wall Street Journal: What Shopping Did for American Equality.
The urban palaces of early department stores, the climate-controlled corridors of suburban malls, the endlessly scrolling pages of Etsy, the utilitarian aisles of Walmart and the chatty reveals of haul videos aren’t merely sites of envy or exchange. They’re places where Americans—both buyers and sellers—work out who we are and who we want to be. Since the mid-19th century, modern retailing has tested the practical meaning of equality and freedom.
When A.T. Stewart opened his multistory dry goods store in 1846, the Manhattan merchant introduced two revolutionary practices that we now take for granted. He let anyone come and browse freely, whether or not intending to buy, and he charged every customer the same price. Both policies changed the everyday meaning of social equality.
At Stewart’s, wrote a journalist in 1871, “you may gaze upon a million dollars’ worth of goods, and no man will interrupt either your meditation or your admiration.” The store and its many emulators established a new social norm. Any well-behaved patron, regardless of class or ethnicity, could freely examine the merchandise without being pestered or pressured to leave.
Unfortunately, there are less and less “well-behaved patrons” and more and more looking to fleece businesses – sometimes on an industrial scale – and thus more and more goods enclosed in cases and security tags.