San Francisco's Shoplifting Surge

[Demovictory9]

Soon after moving to San Francisco in 2016, I walked into a Walgreens in North Beach to buy an electric toothbrush.

As I was paying for it, a man walked into the store, grabbed a handful of beef jerky and walked out. I looked over at an employee, who shrugged. Then I went to Safeway next door for some groceries and I saw a man stuffing three bottles of wine into a backpack and walking casually toward the exit. On his way out he bagged some snacks. I asked the Safeway clerk about the thefts.

“I’m new to San Francisco,” I said. “Is it optional to pay for things here?”

Five years later, the shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco has only worsened.

At a board of supervisors hearing last week, representatives from Walgreens said that thefts at its stores in San Francisco were four times the chain’s national average, and that it had closed 17 stores, largely because the scale of thefts had made business untenable.

Brendan Dugan, the director of the retail crime division at CVS Health, called San Francisco “one of the epicenters of organized retail crime” and said employees were instructed not to pursue suspected thieves because encounters had become too dangerous.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/San-Francisco-s-Shoplifting-Surge-16193767.php

[Dream Girl]

1. SF has become a hot mess.

Poop on the sidewalks, tent cities, car break ins galore...

[Dial H For Hero]

3. I've been there a few times, but not recently. It seems to have gone downhill, to put it mildly.

I have zero desire to visit it today.

[eissa]

10. I love SF, and hate to agree but....

It's true. We live a couple of hours east and enjoy going to the city to visit family and enjoy the city. They own a gelato shop there that is constantly broken into by the same homeless junkie. Cops say there's nothing they can do. How often can a small business owner continue to pay to fix up their place? Walgreens and Safeway can take those hits, small business owners can't and many have opted to shutter rather than tolerate this nonsense. The California Coastal Trail, a beautiful hiking path that is supposedly environmentally protected, has been taken over by shopping carts and tents, and god forbid you say anything because that would be "cruel."

[Elessar Zappa]

11. Homeless people need help not criticism.

If you’re uncomfortable looking at them just imagine how they feel.

[eissa]

12. And there it is

The exact thing many SF residents have to deal with. They can't say anything about their businesses being broken into, homeless camping out literally in front of their doorways, or avoiding whole areas like Union Square to avoid aggressive soliciting, because criticizing them is taboo. San Francisco spends more on the homeless than most major cities, but has nothing to show for it because most of homeless advocates are too busy screaming at the Mayor for the audacity of trying to clean up the city, or they're enabling addicts by handing out drug supplies (no joke) and building more encampments around the Civic Center than actually providing real help.

[maxsolomon]

14. Clean needles keep the Hepatitis rates down.

Which keeps unfunded costs to Hospitals down. Providing clean works also offers opportunities to engage the users and divert them to recovery programs. Its a lesser of 2 evils choice. Nothing is black or white.

I agree with you that the situation has reached a crisis point in SF and elsewhere on the West Coast.

[Dream Girl]

15. Some of them are mired in their situation. Some of the do indeed criticism. I would invite you

To spend a week or so around the shit,garage, and criminality. They have trashed a beautiful city. I hate to say it, but progressive politics in the city have totally enabled them. Not taking about homeless families and other economically displaced persons. It’s the homeless who choose it as a lifestyle and come to SF with the intention of living on the streets. I really don’t care how they feel.

[eissa]

16. Sadly, some see SF as just a place

where the only people who live there are either billionaire tech giants or the homeless. There is a large swath of those in the middle struggling to remain in a city they love, including many college students (my daughter is one of them) who have to avoid taking BART after certain hours because of safety concerns, who have seen their favorite places close their restrooms (even to paying customers) because owners were tired of having to clean them up after being destroyed by psychotic addicts who smear their feces all over the walls, and have watched neighborhood after neighborhood turn into tent cities with the encouragement of homeless advocates who seem to be resentful of those who live in the city and appear hell-bent on punishing them.

[Dream Girl]

18. It's lost all its charm. I kind of blame the homeless advocates.Yep. That's about the size of it.

[brooklynite]

32. "Then I went to Safeway next door for some groceries and I saw a man stuffing three bottles of wine"

A nice burgundy reduces the stress of living rough?

[JI7]

35. Many of them DO need criticism and they refuse the help that is offered

[CrispyQ]

2. Interesting article on the causes of this. -nt

[Bonx]

4. Prop 47 working as expected

[Hortensis]

5. "Organized retail crime." Sounds like it, contributed to by a perfect storm of

negative factors. Makes me wonder for the first time where the goods come from for a depressingly boring flea market we dropped by once. Discount "dollar store" under tarps by an interstate.

Fwiw, there's no evidence that increasing the felony threshhold is a significant factor; that's a typical ignorant assumption and RW notion that harsh penalties and school-to-prison pipelines reduce crime and stand between us and the abyss.

Other states increased the felony threshold for petty crimes, some to more than SF's $950. In TX it's $2500. Raising the misdemeanor-to-felony threshold has been studied, and it is not followed by increased crime. In SF, criminal misdemeanors are still crimes, and perps still go to jail. Break in and steal a Snickers or threaten or hurt anyone while grabbing a bottle of water and it's a felony.

[Amishman]

6. yup, its the lack of interest / effort in enforcement

It's not really decriminalized, its just a non-violent misdemeanor. From what I read in articles like this, there just doesn't seem to be effort put into identification or arrest. I would be curious to read an analysis or just firsthand accounts from that angle. i haven't spent any meaningful time in CA at all since this went into effect.

[Hortensis]

8. Me neither. We have friends and still take the L.A. Times, but...

I am amazed that this got this bad, but guessing more normal levels surged into one of those unforeseen events that break the previous pattern.

Watching experts apparently didn't foresee the Republican leadership's slow-moving authoritarian takeover to leap from ass-protecting inside progress to openly throwing open the doors to the mobs.

In any case, from what I've read about SF's, the crime-busters are now taking it seriously. Organized crime.

Crazy times.

[jalan48]

7. They're renaming the high schools though. Priorities you know.

[dalton99a]

9. +1. "We don't need Walgreens. We use Amazon"

[roamer65]

13. Interesting story.

Did not know it has gotten that bad out there. I visited 20 years ago and even then saw SF would not be a place I would want to live in. Too much crime and way too expensive.

[eissa]

17. It's an amazing city

I'm not a world-traveler, but have been to many major US cities, and they just don't compare to SF: beautiful green spaces, gorgeous hiking trails with jaw-dropping views of the Bay and GG Bridge, a plethora of interesting neighborhoods with charming architecture, rolling hills with scenic views in every direction, world-class restaurants, vibrant cultural activities, a thriving art scene, you name it. You could spend years there and suddenly discover a new place you never even knew existed. It's a shame that a culture of kindness and tolerance has been weaponized against itself, resulting in a city that has been left to decay by its own short-sightedness.

[Dream Girl]

19. That is very well stated. An accurate description of the city as it was 20 years ago.

[dalton99a]

20. +1

[smirkymonkey]

34. I lived there a little over 20 years ago for about 6 years and it was only bad in certain areas.

The rest of the city was still pretty nice with low crime rates. The Tenderloin was pretty scary and some parts of Downtown. The Haight and some of the surrounding areas could be a little rough as well. I lived in Pacific Heights and my rent was pretty inexpensive at the time (compared to what it is these days) and it was very safe.

I came back east because I am an northeasterner at heart and my family and most of my good friends are back here. I am just more comfortable in this area of the country. I never felt grounded out there. I went out there knowing it wouldn't be forever. I left just before things started getting really expensive and before all the dot.coms started to go under. Good timing.

[Raine]

21. I live in Los Angeles but used to go to San Francisco every month or so

I loved it so much. It was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I wouldn't go there now even if I was paid to go. I can't stand to even imagine what it's become.

[beaglelover]

23. Los Angeles is rapidly becoming SF South.

The homelessness is out of control around where I live in NoHo. We’re escaping to the desert in a few years after living in LA since 1988.

[Raine]

24. Yes it is. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles along the coast

and even the suburbs are getting bad. We're looking to move out of here and toward central California within the next couple of years. Everything is getting worse, homelessness, traffic, crime etc. I lived in this area all my life but it doesn't improve it, just gets worse.

[Demovictory9]

25. I lived in noho yrs ago..know it well

[JI7]

36. There seems to be criminal elements among this . This isn't homelessness like we usually think of it

where at "worst" you might get annoyed with people asking for money .

There are people getting physically violent .

[Rustyeye77]

22. Been there 2 years ago.

I couldn’t wait to leave.

The homeless and panhandling were overwhelming.
Parks were over run.
Filth everywhere.

If homeless advocates want to talk they have to take in at least 2 homeless people.

I haven’t been there but I hear Portland has its problems.

I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

[Demovictory9]

26. Seattle too

but still an amazing city

[dalton99a]

27. It's not just California. The homeless situation in Austin got out of control and caused a backlash

Voters just approved a Republican-led proposition to ban homeless tents on sidewalks in Austin, and then, when the city announced plans to move them to city parks near some neighborhoods, the Texas legislature promptly passed a bill to prevent the city from doing so. I guess the goal is to push them back into the woods outside city limits.

Austin is solid blue. The homeless population surged during the last few years as part of the recent population influx and became a highly visible problem - panhandlers at every street corner, tents obstructing sidewalks and hiking trails, property thefts and violent crimes, including some fires:

[eissa]

30. Don't be surprised if that happens in CA

People are fed up. I live in the Central Valley and the homeless encampment under one of our bridges has been set on fire THREE TIMES. Will it take a major thoroughfare like this bridge to burn down before any action is taken?

[Mz Pip]

28. It's a horrible situation

I live by Berkeley. There are tent encampments under and around most freeway overpasses and on and off ramps. Garbage everywhere. Drugs are a problem and meth addicts often become hoarders of trash.People can’t even agree about cleaning up the trash.
There are now streets in non residential neighborhoods that have become permanent RV encampments. Again, trash is a problem. Shoplifting is a huge problem as is package and mail theft. Assaults are on the rise as well. The police seem unable or unwilling to do anything.

A few weeks ago someone on a local message board commented that there were areas that looked like Calcutta. That created quite an outrage from the homeless advocates. But what realistically can be done about it? Oakland has a Tiny House project, but again, it hardly makes a dent.

My son and daughter-in-law lived near one of the freeway on ramp encampments. They would find people sleeping on their porch or banging on their door at 2am, using the toddler park next door as a toilet. They moved when she became afraid to walk their daughter around the neighborhood in a stroller.

Affordable housing is certainly an issue. More shelters are needed also. I really don’t have any solutions but it’s not as though no one is trying.

[eissa]

29. "Outrage from the homeless advocates"

Calcutta is an apt description. The Seabreeze encampment along 80 with the amazing views of the SF skyline was a good example. Advocates fought tooth and nail against its cleanup, but the state finally succeeded and ended up moving 35 TONS of garbage. The advocates do more harm than good. More concerned with the comforts of the homeless than the well-being of everyone else. Residents deserve to live in safe, clean spaces and these advocates do their darnedest to prevent that.

[Nexus2]

31. Are things really that bad in San Francisco?

I'd seen threads on a fairly hardline Right site I lurk on discussing and their descriptions seemed very hyperbolic (you can't walk down the street without stepping in human wastes, etc).

I assumed they were at least exxagerating, particularly when things got heatedly political as they blamed the 'usual suspect' and went on about how rural (and primarily conservative) were such well run virtual Utopia's, free of crime and poverty.

But some of the accounts in this thread ring similar to those. Has homelessness really grown to the level in SF (and possibly other large cities)? I don't think the reason are political, but its definitely an issue that requires quick and extensive efforts

[JI7]

33. It's kind of hard to describe . The homeless situation is really bad

but at the same time things are going pretty well .

The right wing sites are bs because they show those homeless pics but they don't show the places where people live and how housing remains expensive because of high demand . The comparison to right wing places is bs also because nobody lives there . There isn't much going on there . You can't make money like you can in SF and LA . Businesses are not going there .

In fact those right wing towns are offering people money to live there.

So yeah, the homeless situation sucks and is veRY bad . The ones more affected tend to be the working class/middle class types because they are often the ones that work and open businesses in the areas these homeless people are in.

The closure of walgreens is an example . That's a lot of jobs from minimum wage to high pay jobs because of the pharmacy .

[Demovictory9]

37. it's happened all over california.. tent sleeping in urban areas (rather than off in the woods)

&t=218s

[eissa]

38. The right definitely exaggerates it

I’ve never seen human feces anywhere in the city. Many neighborhoods are quite safe and there are plenty of areas that are clean and enjoyable. I live in a purple district in the Central Valley and it’s hardly Utopia; we have the same issues, although not at the same scale (yet.) The fact is that this is a huge problem, made worse by those who place obstacles in the way in the name of “compassion.”