After employees reported that the shop was being looted approximately 20 times daily, the management chained the glass doors in the frozen food aisle at Walgreens in San Francisco.
Richie Greenberg, a political analyst, shared a video online in which the doors to an aisle full of frozen microwave dinners are sealed with heavy chains and multiple heavy metal locks.
In another scene, whole aisles are sealed off by plexiglass displays and wall-to-wall glass cabinets. Many items, including hair color, cosmetics, shaving cream, and over-the-counter medication, are locked in displays and cannot be purchased without first obtaining the key from store staff.
Employees have reported to the local media that shoplifters steal all of the pizza and ice cream from the store every night. Burglars allegedly enter the business twenty times daily and load their bags with stolen products.
Greenberg said over the years, he has seen the neighborhood deteriorate into a “graffiti-ridden, homeless, and drug-addict frenzy.”
He said he’d had a terrible experience as a customer waiting for store employees to open the locks to the store’s sections where the items he needs are kept. He’s waited in the drugstore pickup line as armed robbers made their way out. While driving by the same business, he witnessed homeless people carrying stolen goods across the street. Greenberg expressed displeasure with the San Francisco City Hall officials who disregarded the issue.
At least five Walgreens locations have closed in San Francisco because of “organized retail crime.”
Thefts under $950 are considered misdemeanors in California, which has been criticized for allegedly encouraging criminal behavior. There has been a widespread closure of shops. Recently, La Cocina, a prominent San Francisco food hall, said it would close because customers felt frightened due to public urination and drug dealing on the streets nearby.
In May, San Francisco Assemblymember Dean Preston announced his intention to introduce legislation to forbid armed security guards from using their firearms in self-defense situations. Security shot and killed a suspected shoplifter a month before the statement.
According to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation in 2022, San Francisco and Oakland were the second most impacted metropolitan region by theft in 2020 and 2021, after only Los Angeles.
