The most-robbed Walgreens within the nation noticed its newest thefts captured on digital camera — in the course of a journalist’s televised report on the rampant crime on the San Francisco retailer.
CNN Senior National Correspondent Kyung Lah was on the retailer on Monday evening to report on the shop’s newest anti-theft tactic — chaining the doorways to its freezers shut — when she noticed a shoplifter strolling out with merchandise in his arms.
“Did that man pay? Did that man pay?” Lah asks a cashier behind the counter.
The worker merely solutions, “He didn’t pay.”
Lah mentioned she witnessed two different robberies in half-hour whereas conducting her story, noting that of the almost 9,000 Walgreens within the US, the one in San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood was the one with the “highest theft charge.”
In the story, Lah mentioned that the shop sees greater than a dozen thefts a day, and it had lately seen thieves cleansing out its frozen items part.
It received to the purpose the place “staff grew so annoyed they resorted to the chains,” Lah mentioned, referencing the most recent anti-theft system.
The reporter, nevertheless, famous that the workers had been informed to place the chains away “due to the detrimental messaging.”
Local resident Richie Greenberg, who toured the shop with Lah, mentioned he had by no means seen something like what he witnessed on the Walgreens, saying the state of affairs is emblematic of the disaster dealing with the town.
“This was weird, one thing I’d by no means seen earlier than,” Greenberg mentioned. “This is simply extra icing on the cake. Telling us that rampant crime has develop into a daily a part of life.”
The National Retail Federation’s 2022 retail safety survey ranked the San Francisco Bay Area because the second hardest hit metropolitan space by theft within the earlier two years.
Walgreens has notably shut down 5 shops within the space as a result of theft for the reason that retail crime epidemic started.
Along with the Walgreens within the Richmond neighborhood, a Target within the downtown space sees greater than 10 thefts a day, leaving the shop little alternative however to lock up most of its merchandise.
Other chains resembling Whole Foods, Nordstrom, CVS and Amazon have both left downtown San Francisco altogether or introduced their intention to take action.
