Why Companies Are Leaving San Francisco

The Monday closure of San Francisco’s flagship supermarket Whole Foods is just the latest in a long line of chain and small businesses in the city. Crime, drug use, and economic factors unique to San Francisco have left many business owners concerned about their future in the city and where they might be able to relocate.

For many, the desire to move out of the city has been budding for years.

“Before COVID, we were just looking for a way out because of the rental cost,” Lucy Chen, a restaurant co-owner in the city, told the Globe on Tuesday. “And we don’t want to go. We are the third generation here and part of the vibrant Chinese American community here. The hills, the trams, the fog. I mean it’s great.”

“But after the 2008 recession, when things started to bounce back, prices started to rise. And crime. Crime was always there, but it just kept getting worse. Our restaurant was robbed in 2015 and the police did what they could, they really did but it felt like they were holding something back. All of this just screamed at us to get out. My brother lives in San Diego and I have a sister outside of Sacramento so we looked there for Las Vegas and Boise if you can believe that. Then the pandemic came and it kind of anchored us here. We invested all the money we had for the move to stay afloat.”

“So that’s where we are, and where a lot of others are too. A brick and mortar store a few doors down from us has managed to stay open despite Staples and Amazon. But they moved out, not because of them, but because the homeless crowded around their store and it scared customers away. This is the reality of San Francisco. Ask any shopkeeper here and you’ll hear them calling for tougher laws back.”

Another business owner, Alexei Volkov, agreed.

“We’ve been robbed many times, often people try to take razor blades or detergent and they run out,” Volkov told the Globe. “Last year a woman tried to go out with lots of baby food during a time of shortage. And what did the police do? They got them and everything, but the next week they were outside the store again.”

“I’ll probably be in Stockton by this time next year. I sign a lease there. I just want to live in a city with justice where people who steal don’t always come back. I can talk to you here about drug addicts, but I don’t want to keep you on the phone for an hour.”

Crime, homelessness, high prices, drug use

Helen Dawson, a small business owner who helps new owners know where to go, told the Globe on Tuesday how she breaks it down for people in the city.

“Okay, let’s say you want to open a supermarket,” Dawson explained. “They have all the licenses and everything, all the agreements and contracts and they just have to find a place. If you’re looking for a lower crime location like Pacific Heights or Marina or Russian Hill, you’ll have to worry about the cost. Buying is expensive, renting is expensive, and having a convenience store there might not matter. The same applies to tourist areas. If you go cheaper, you’ll have to deal more with crime. Affluent neighborhoods have also been hit hard, as we just saw with Whole Foods and these recent attacks, but if you want to open up in the Tenderloin, for example? It won’t be pleasant.”

“Drug use too. There are many open drug users in the city, and they can also come into the stores. Oddly enough, if you have a low-end business, you can actually benefit from it. If you’ve ever walked into a grocery store in a low-income area, you’ll see lots of socks, aerosol cans, shoelaces, small plastic roses in a glass tube, and other seemingly random items on the shelves that sell quickly. but look into this a bit and you will see why these all sell really well because they are used by addicts to get high one way or another. In a way, homeless people are also customers as they get cheap food, but at the same time they can also contribute to crime in the area. Depends on the person.”

“As for police coverage or getting help if you need it? The SFPD is trying, but they’re not really reliable because they’re constrained from what they can do and there aren’t enough of them at the moment.”

“So at the moment you either have to pay a lot for a slightly better place or risk being robbed more and generally being in a depressed area. That is the state of the country at the moment. The city is wondering why so many companies are leaving, and it’s because they’re fucked no matter what they do. Anywhere is a better option for business than San Francisco right now.”