Throughout Democrat-run cities across the United States, as increasingly authoritarian city and state Governments have thrust millions of Americans unwillingly back into lockdown, many of them have simultaneously reduced funding to or placed severe restrictions upon the operations of their Police and Prosecutors. The results speak for themselves: looting, rioting, and businesses closing. California for example passed Proposition 47 co-authored by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón which took lower-level crimes like petty theft and drug offenses and petty larceny and reclassified them as misdemeanors, not felonies. Now, stores in major cities around the country are closing their doors permanently as large retailers abandon the sinking ships.
The major shift in law enforcement policy increased the dollar amount for which theft can be prosecuted as a felony from $400 to $950 to “adjust for inflation and cost of living”, and “limit our prison population”. Alex Bastian, special advisor to LA District Attorney Gascón told the Associated Press that “most shoplifting cases are under $400 dollars, to begin with, so before Prop 47 and after Prop 47, there isn’t any difference.” Since then, however, this has evolved to be one of the worst hot-takes ever s smash & grab robberies have skyrocketed with losses mounting in the Billions.
According to The Daily Wire,
“In November, CVS announced that it will close around 900 retail locations over the next three years, which amounts to about 9% of its 10,000 stores. CVS locations across the country have been affected by looting over the past year and a half, but the company cited more customers shopping online in its decision to close stores.”
Rite Aid said just this week that it is closing 63 stores in order to reduce costs and boost profitability.
In October, Walgreens announced that they would close five locations in San Francisco, citing rampant shoplifting across the city. The company said that it increased security measures at Walgreens locations “across the city to 46 times our chain average” in an effort to combat San Francisco’s “organized retail theft” epidemic.
Flying directly in the face of Bastian’s ridiculous assertion that lax punishment somehow wouldn’t affect the crime rate, San Francisco, in particular, “The city has seen a particularly high number of robberies involving merchandise worth tens of thousands of dollars.” As the Democrat-Socialist Governments in these cities and states like Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, and Portland continue whistling past the graveyard and the media sees fit to ignore whatever doesn’t fit the leftist narrative the situation in these cities will only continue to deteriorate as pharmacies, retailers and even grocery stores begin cutting their losses.
Looting Losses Are Stacking Up And Democrats’ Policies Are To Blame
We have to get a few things straight here: Businesses and stores were already under a great deal of strain due to the initial COVID19 lockdown (15 days to flatten the curve) and subsequent supply disruptions. But the lengthy, punishing lockdowns that were employed almost exclusively in Democrat-run areas that persisted for nearly two whole years only to be briefly relaxed and slammed back down with the so-called ‘Delta’ and ‘Omicron’ variants severely exacerbated the situation. And aside from casually and baselessly blaming President Trump, Biden’s Press Secretary Jen Psaki blamed COVID19 for the surge in crime and the retailer’s struggles. This is called obtusely missing the point. We aren’t seeing a spiral of closures in Arizona, or South Dakota, Florida, or Texas.
In Seattle, Washington, and Long Beach, California the city governments demanded hazard pay for their employees who worked during the pandemic, in response, Kroger closed stores in several stores in both cities. But in California and New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, and Oregon, where you’re seeing flash mobs strip storefronts bare and brazen daytime armed robberies, you’re seeing closures from Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS, Apple, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Target, etc, sometimes for months, many times… forever.
Hopefully, the criminals remember when looting to claim their stolen property on their taxes… (No, we’re serious… we checked… this is real.)
— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) December 27, 2021
