Another San Francisco Grocery Store Closes Citing Theft, Safety

Why does this keep happening in San Francisco? Last year a brand new Whole Foods in the city closed after just over a year. We eventually learned the reasons why.

People threatened employees with guns, knives and sticks. They flung food, screamed, fought and tried to defecate on the floor, according to records of 568 emergency calls over 13 months, many depicting scenes of mayhem.

“Male w/machete is back,” the report on one 911 call states. “Another security guard was just assaulted,” another says. A man with a four-inch knife attacked several security guards, then sprayed store employees with foam from a fire extinguisher, according to a third…

Police described theft as rampant at Whole Foods, with thieves walking out with armfuls of alcohol, at least at the start. After 250 shopping hand baskets were stolen, the company restocked with 50 more. Those went missing, too.

Danger to employees combined with rampant theft made it a losing proposition. And just a few months ago a market that had been operating in the city for 35 years closed citing the same problems.

In addition to inflation-fueled bills and declining foot traffic, the small grocery and deli has suffered from “rampant” crime, including near-daily shoplifting and three break-ins in the past couple years, Pesusic said. He blamed city officials for the increased crime, slamming law enforcement and city leaders for being unresponsive and overly permissive.

“Our family business is going down the tubes because the idiots in City Hall can’t protect us,” Pesusic told the Chronicle…

In the absence of law enforcement, people deal drugs right outside Bayside’s doors and serial shoplifters operate with no consequences, Pesusic said. 

“These guys think our store is a pantry where they can take whatever they want,” Pesusic said. “We’ve been spit at, we’ve had knives pulled on us, we’ve been called names.

Today, a Safeway in the Fillmore district announced it would close in February. This particular Safeway store has been in business at the site for 40 years. You’ll never be able to guess why they are closing.

Safeway announced on Tuesday that it would close its Webster Street supermarket on Feb. 7, a blow to San Francisco’s Fillmore and Japantown neighborhoods that have pushed to convince the grocery chain to keep the struggling store open…

The company said it was “proud” of its 40-year history in the Fillmore but that the decision to close the store was made “due to ongoing concerns about associate and customer safety, as well as persistent issues with theft.”…

San Francisco Police Department incident reports include complaints of frequent car breakins, assaults, loitering and illegal dumping. The store’s self-checkout kiosks were removed last December in an effort to reduce theft.

Safeway was planning to close this store back in April but in response to a public outcry the agreed to hold it open a bit longer. They made a real effort to deal with the crime problem, including installing security gates near the self-checkout area. But the scale of the problem was simply too big to deal with.

A San Francisco Safeway with new receipt-scanning security gates continues to see high rates of daily theft despite the increased shoplifting measures, staff say.

“I’d say 60 to 100 [thefts] on my shift alone,” said a security guard at the 3350 Mission St. Safeway, who spoke anonymously because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

Can you imagine 100 thieves in 8 hours? That works out to one every five minutes. No one can make a profit under those circumstances. And yet, knowing this store was on the way out, the SFPD still couldn’t do anything about it. The shoplifters don’t get caught. The city just let this fail.

Safeway pointed out that they still had 15 other stores in the city and hoped to continue serving customers at those locations. But the thieves will just start shoplifting at the remaining stores. They aren’t going to stop just because they are making life worse for everyone else. Unless the city’s newly elected mayor enhance the police force and change the city’s usual approach to rampant theft, this won’t be the last supermarket that closes citing theft and safety issues.