Previously, the store had changed its bathroom policy to cut down on drug use and removed its handbaskets because they made shoplifting easier. But, that wasn’t enough, NBC Bay Area notes:
“The location at 8th and Market streets will keep its doors closed beginning Tuesday. It's not known when the store will reopen.
"‘To ensure the safety of our Team Members, we have made the difficult decision to close the Trinity store for the time being,’ a Whole Foods Market spokesperson said in a statement.”
The store, which was a little more than a year old, shut its doors after a center across the street helping drug users and the homeless closed, local station KTVU reports:
“The store opened on March 10, 2022, and was nearly 65,000 square feet.
“Five months ago, the Tenderloin Center — a place intended to be a safe place to reduce overdose deaths for those who use drugs and provided services for the unhoused — was across the street from Whole Foods, but closed.”
Crime in San Francisco isn’t confined to just everyday citizens, Yahoo! News reports:
“The news comes after a recent spate of violent attacks upon prominent San Franciscans. CashApp founder Bob Lee was fatally stabbed last week, cycling champion Ethan Boyes died after being struck by a car, and former fire commissioner Don Carmignani was brutally beat over the head with a pipe by a homeless man, surviving.
“When a team from CNN traveled to San Francisco’s city hall to report on the crime issue, members of the crew had their bags stolen out of their rental car nearby.”
Other retailers in the city are also closing, due to increasing crime.
For example, despite increased security, theft at Walmart and Walgreens stores in San Francisco has skyrocketed, forcing store closures. And, as The Daily Mail has noted, soft-on-crime policies are to blame:
“These lax bail reform laws in often-liberal cities, including New York and San Francisco, mean there is virtually no penalty for the thieves who carry out the crimes.
“Without any threat of a jail sentence, the crooks are released back out onto the streets and able to reoffend - often on the same day of their original arrest.”
San Francisco has, reportedly, become “a shoplifter’s paradise,” since theft of less than $950 has been, essentially, decriminalized.
A study of prospective homebuyers by brokerage company Redfin released last December found that San Francisco had the highest net outflow - a measure of how many more homebuyers are looking to leave an area than move into it - among major metropolitan cities.