San Francisco: A single family store suffered $700,000 thefts in one year
A family-owned hardware store in San Francisco has lost a whopping $700,000 in just one year to "shoplifting," as the city continues to fight rampant crime. All in a decadent city where the law favors crime, with the decriminalization of shoplifting up to $900 in value.
Dale Hardware owner Kyle Smith described the helplessness facing Fremont and said his grandfather, who founded the store in 1955, would "turn over in his grave" if he knew of the rampant shoplifting. The store sells hardware in a historic area of the city and now sees a number of thefts that suggest a real organized crime system.
By now we can speak of real organized looting of shops, linked to lax legislation and a boom in the presence of the homeless and drug addicts.
Smith told the San Jose Mercury News, 'If you call them, they either won't stop, or they look at you aggressively.'
How do we run a small business with $1,800 in losses a day? It ends up costing the consumer more because we can't survive without raising prices."
Here is a video with some of the theft scenes
Dale Hardware owner Kyle Smith (pictured) described the helpless situation in Fremont and said his grandfather, who founded the store in 1955, would have "rolled in his grave" had he known of the rampant shoplifting.
Surveillance footage, shot over several days in 2022, showed several people brazenly walking out of the shop holding stolen tools. Some are hidden in bags, but others are carried around outdoors.
Footage shows people single-handedly carrying off $2,800 worth of material without being stopped by staff. In another case, a man tucked gloves stolen from shelves into his pants before walking out of the store unscathed. He also took 37 circular saw blades from the shop.
Another situation had a couple loading a flatbed cart with $11,000 worth of specialty wire. One of the accomplices stood at the door posing as a customer and warned employees to stop chasing him because "they have guns".
A woman, pushing a double stroller with a blanket and teddy bears, hid $4,000 worth of batteries in less than four minutes.
The big store has hired dozens of employees and has installed many cameras and license plate readers in the parking lot in an attempt to stop the looting, but to no avail.
The owner said that by now he doesn't even call the police anymore because, by now, they are powerless and he doesn't even answer calls anymore.
The city is now in the hands of thieves who have organized themselves to carry out their business in an increasingly profitable way. Many chains have closed their stores, others have reduced them, others still, as a target, have closed the products in sealed cabinets, to prevent theft.
Here we are in a city that is a very short distance from Silicon Valley, home to the very rich High Tech giants, and which is instead decaying at an impressive speed.
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The article San Francisco: a single family store has suffered thefts for 700 thousand dollars in one year comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/san-francisco-un-singolo-negozio-famigliare-ha-subito-furti-per-700-mila-dollari-in-un-anno/ on Wed, 09 Aug 2023 09:00:19 +0000.