Safeway In Castro Cuts Hours Due To 'Off The Charts' Shoplifting

[left-of-center2012]

Yet another major retailer in San Francisco has made the decision to close earlier due to excessive theft particularly at night, according to San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman. The Castro Safeway on Market and Church Streets was open 24 hours, but that’s not the case any longer. Signs posted on its entrance state its new hours are 6 am to 9 pm, effective October 24.

Mandelman’s district includes the Market Street Safeway. He said the company reached out to him to discuss problems with theft.
“I think like a lot of retailers they’ve been experiencing increasing property crime and theft from their stores,” Mandelman said.
“I think the last 6 months from what they say has been off the charts in terms of how bad it’s been. It’s sad, upsetting and frustrating.”

Mandelman said he’s now working on organizing a meeting with Safeway, San Francisco police and the district attorney. “It’s an equity problem,” he said. “There’s a lot of low-income folks, seniors, folks with disability, who rely on that Safeway and other Safeways around the city.”

For now, Johnny Denham, who works at night, will have to change his routine. “It’s better for me to come up here after work, go shopping and go home,” he said.
“Now it’s like I either have to go shopping before work, or on my days off, which I really don’t like doing.”

Safeway did not immediately return KPIX 5’s request for comment.

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/11/01/safeway-in-castro-cuts-hours-due-to-off-the-charts-shoplifting-its-sad-upsetting-and-frustrating/

[msongs]

1. shoplifters are looters. not good for a business after awhile nt

[Steelrolled]

2. I shop at Costco occasionally.

I wonder if their system at the exit greatly reduces shoplifting.

Plus it's hard to hide 4-packs of breakfast cereal.

[FakeNoose]

3. It won't be long before the essential grocery & retailers just pack up and leave

Can anyone blame them?

[jimfields33]

4. They need to go back and redo the shoplifting law

Only charging over 950 dollars is dumb. Not even sure why it was needed.

[left-of-center2012]

5. They make too much money to quit n/t

[rockfordfile]

6. I agree

[sarisataka]

8. Yes they will be blamed

Several chains that announced closings have already been criticized

[Busterscruggs]

7. Is Safeway union?

They might be trying to punish their workers by cutting their hours.

[Sympthsical]

11. They are, more than one

I believe the meat department has a separate union.

It isn't really an hour thing. Safeway doesn't employ very many people full time. My tenant works at our local Safeway in the bakery. He's been there for about five or six years, I want to say, but they've never put him full time. And they can get spiky about the hours sometimes. Depends how the department manager does it. I usually hear him leave around 3 or 4am. Some days he'll be back by 10 or so. Sometimes not til noon.

It really varies.

[Busterscruggs]

13. It's a shame

That they are blaming the poor who can't afford groceries for all of this. Greedy corporations are always looking for excuses to make more profit

[MichMan]

15. They are not blaming the poor; just the criminals that are stealing from them

[Hugh_Lebowski]

9. Just gonna say I know that Safeway pretty well ... and sayin it's in 'The Castro' is a stretch

At best it's on the very fringe of the Castro, and very close to some significantly less 'nice' of neighborhoods.

Just saying.

[Sympthsical]

14. Yeah, I'm probably with you on that

I mean, Hi Tops (trivia!) and Beaux are in that direction.

Once you're at Church Street, you're pretty much hitting hipster at that point. No, I do not want to drink an IPA out of a mason jar. Stop trying to make me!

But, my friends and I would always hit it up to for cheap pre-drinks. It's always been kind of a mess. The night and day difference is . . . well, night and day.

I haven't been since the pandemic, right when I moved to North Bay. I heard some places closed like Badlands and Q Bar. I keep meaning to visit, but no one feels like it after the pandemic. It's like we all somehow aged ten years.

[Sympthsical]

10. That store has been problematic for a very long time

I've been there many, many times. They didn't have doors on the bathrooms for many years, because too many people were going into the bathrooms doing drugs, eating food, drinking booze, etc.

If you went in there at night, you'd just find empty booze bottles in there, shit all over the place, half-eaten food out of the packages, etc. It was seriously a disaster. It didn't look like that during the day, because they'd clean it all up in the morning. But by later in the evening, yep, pretty rough.

[maxsolomon]

12. This is fine. Groceries didn't used to be 24 hour.

Today's transient poor are wretchedly poor - no one should be shocked they shoplift.

[NBachers]

16. I walked into the Walgreens in my neighborhood at Mission & Caesar Chavez- they're closing.

I wasn't even aware that they were shutting down, but the shelves are bare, and there's hardly anything left. It's too bad.

I work retail. I'm not in sympathy with shoplifting thieves. There's more going on than just the poor little match girl nicking a crust of bread for her poor starving mum. There are plenty of food distribution programs around town.