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Why is Walgreens actually closing its shops in San Francisco? — Quartz

Walgreens Boots Alliance recently announced that it will close five stores in San Francisco because the company says it was “organized retail theft.” Theft in the Bay Area has risen to five times the national average for Walgreens stores in recent months, the company said, a statistic that has made national headlines and sparked discussions about shoplifting in the city.

San Francisco city officials, journalists and criminal law experts have denied this claim, raising questions about why Walgreens decided to close its stores. San Francisco Mayor London Breed dismissed Walgreens’ claim, saying the real reason could be that the stores are not generating enough revenue and the city is “saturated” with Walgreens outlets.

Walgreens said increased investments in security measures to combat shoplifting have proven costly. “To combat this retail theft, we’ve increased our investment in security measures in stores across town to 46 times our chain average to create a safer environment. This is primarily due to our participation in the city’s 10B program to recruit off-duty SFPD officials for a presence in our stores, ”said Phil Caruso, a Walgreens spokesman, in an email to Quartz. (10-B is a program that enables businesses and events to recruit off-duty San Francisco Police officers for overtime pay.)

In the statement, Caruso points out that the main concern is “organized retail crime,” where professional thieves steal goods for resale on digital marketplaces. In July, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill to reinstate a task force dedicated to combating organized retail theft rings.

City administration is skeptical

Some of the skepticism from San Francisco officials and the public came from Walgreens’ 2019 SEC filing, which reveals a plan to close at least 200 stores in the U.S. as part of a cost-cutting initiative. The drugstore chain lost $ 1.7 billion during the Covid-19 lockdowns and is likely to slowly recover.

“So is Walgreens closing stores for theft or because of a pre-existing business plan to reduce costs and increase profits by consolidating stores and moving customers to online purchases?” San Francisco manager Dean Preston tweeted.

Additionally, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Walgreens stores that are closing had only seven reported shoplifting incidents this year, and the five stores that are slated to close had an average of fewer than two reported shoplifting incidents per month. Many items in Walgreens – including toothpaste, shampoo, and allergy medication – are kept locked up so an employee has to unlock the cabinet for the customer. The Chronicle also reported that despite media reports, the number of reported shoplifting incidents is falling.

What is Prop 47?

Some observers attribute the Walgreens closure to Proposition 47, a 2014 referendum that aimed to reduce some felony to misdemeanor. The move was welcomed by advocates of the criminal justice system as a way to curb incarceration for lower-level crimes or “crimes of survival” often committed by the unhodged or living in poverty. However, a common misconception is that Proposition 47 prevents the arrest and prosecution of those who commit retail theft. The referendum classified the theft of property up to $ 950 as a misdemeanor only, not a crime. Retailers tried unsuccessfully to reset Proposition 47 in 2020.

Criminal law researchers argue that a better approach to curbing retail theft is to diagnose the real problems. “Prop 47 is believed to be responsible for these thefts,” says Charis Kubrin, professor of criminology, law, and society at the University of California at Irvine. “So many other things are happening at the same time along with Prop 47. We have a pandemic, we have a recession and increasing poverty, inequality and unemployment. We have mobility, people traveling in and out of San Francisco, which affects traffic, and people shopping at Walgreens. “

There are also criminal justice advocates that this Walgreens-sponsored narrative will spark efforts to recall progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and hamper criminal justice reform in the city. “What you have are people who support policies or develop strategies that are not based on what the data shows, but based on fear of crime, moral panic and the politicization of that policy,” said Kubrin.

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