Target to Shut Down Nine Locations in Liberal Cities Amid Violence, Crime, and Theft
After suffering major stock losses over the summer for promoting LGBTQ clothes to children, retail giant Target is now shuttering nine stores across liberal cities due to intense violence, crime, and theft.
According to CNBC, Target announced Tuesday that it would be shutting down nine stores across the country in locations such as New York, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland. With stores shutting down by October 21st.
“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests. We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all,” the company said in a press release.
Target announced it would be closing three locations in the San Francisco-Oakland area, two stores in Seattle, three in Portland, and one in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York.
Back in May, Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, projected that organized retail theft would cost the company $500 million more this year than last. Cornell said that the shoplifting and retail affects everyone by “limiting product availability — and putting our team and guests in harm’s way.”
Cornell stated that shutting down the stores was a last-ditch effort as utilizing other methods such as using cases to lock down merchandise, hiring third-party security, and training employees on how to de-escalate situations has done nothing to stop crime in these locations.
“Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully,” Target stated.
In California and Oregon, some of the policies that have led to this unsafe environment include California’s Proposition 47, which reclassified felony theft offenses as misdemeanors if merchandise stolen equated to $950 dollars or less.
Portland, Oregon handles retail theft in a similar way, classifying shoplifting as a misdemeanor, a lesser crime that is usually never followed-up on by the severely understaffed police departments in the city.
Target isn’t the only business that has been affected by the rampant crime in liberal cities, with Starbucks and Nordstrom recently closing locations, also citing the rampant crime in the various cities listed above. However, it’s local businesses that are the most impacted, as regular mom-and-pop shops fight to protect their livelihoods from the everyday rampant thefts in these cities.
