Target Closing 9 City Stores, Citing Theft and Violence

[bjl584]

Target says it will close nine stores, citing violence and theft (cnbc.com)

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I was preparing myself to see "my" Target on the list . My impression is that shoplifting in the area where my Target is has really zoomed upward in the last few years.

[Fishindude77]

Can't blame them. Retail is a pretty tough low margin business under good circumstances.
No point in keeping a "loser" store open if you have others that are performing well.

Pretty sad the way crime has gotten out of hand in some of these areas last couple years.

[ua_guy]

It's unfortunate. The larger picture is that employees can't and shouldn't try to stop thieves or retaliate. Not only is it perilous to personal safety, an injury or death can end up costing the store/company much, much more than just letting the product walk out the door. Many companies have very strict non-confrontation policies when it comes to theft, so extreme, an employee will be immediately fired if they confront a thief.

Private security guards cannot/should not retaliate for the same reason. They are typically minimally paid employees and the potential cost of injury/suit is too high to justify. Thieves know this, and walk right past them.

So, police? To hire an off-duty officer costs a lot of money. It's also not the job of the police to stand guard for a private business, as they serve the general public. If they are hired and paid for by the business, fine, but my tax dollars don't need to be spent guarding junk at a dollar store.

The laws regarding theft really haven't changed, and police departments in major cities haven't, actually, been defunded. Violent crime takes priority over property theft, and as we transition more towards a have/have-not society, this kind of behavior will continue.

[kork13]

It really is sad. That's part of the same reason why certain neighborhoods end up becoming "food deserts" (or some phrase similar), which also happen to frequently exist in areas with higher crime rates. High crime at a store drives away business, which pushes the stores out. Of course, there's also a chicken/egg argument to be made ... does crime increase because of limited opportunities & inadequate police presence, or are those issues a result of the higher crime rate? But either way, it becomes a death spiral, with negative factors building on negative factors, creating a self-perpetuating problem.

[james.hendrickson]

Target says it will close nine stores, citing violence and theft (cnbc.com)

So....I live in Portland,

Three points on this...

1) The crime situation is bad. People will just walk into a store, stuff a backpack full of goods, and just walk out without paying. Its rampant. Calling the police is basically useless - they'll come in 40 minutes or so. Why? Because large parts of downtown - especially in the areas where one of the targets is closing is just totally overloaded with homeless drug addicts, and there just aren't enough police to solve problems. And, even if the police did arrest people, the county prosecutor has been letting them go...and the laws have recently changed to make camping and drug use legal. So, the criminal justice system is basically impotent.

2) The city is spending hundreds of millions on anti-homelessness efforts, and it just isn't helping that much - except as a way to employ progressive social workers. There just aren't enough beds for all the mentally ill.

3) Also - Portland and Multnomah county are aggressive in their taxation. Small business have to pay taxes to four levels of government - the city, the county, the state and the Feds.

So, add the tax burden and the public safety aspects, and I'm not at all surprised that big businesses are pulling out. A lot of smaller businesses have closed their doors. Target's exit comes on the heels of Walmart pulling out earlier this year - for the same reasons.

There are also sociological aspects of the problem. Portland is kind of an inverted place. People really aren't into work, they'd rather brew beer and have polyamorous relationships. So, a lot of commonsense gets rejected in favor of politically ideologically charged progressive philosophies. Ideas that white people are bad because they are white, or the notion that criminals commit crime because of racially defined power structures are commonplace and accepted.

So, all in all, its pretty much watching a city slowly commit suicide over time.

[disneysteve]

James, sounds like you’re pretty unhappy with where you live. Have you considered moving?

[bjl584]

I'd move if half of that was true James. I'm assuming your kids are keeping you where you are? Afterall, you can run your websites from anywhere in the world.

[ua_guy]

I'm familiar with Portland and it's a weird place. Maybe calling it weird isn't fair, but "Keep Portland Weird" is a well-known mantra around the place. In the right dose, it adds to the charm of the city.

Portland deserves acclaim for its radical approach to dealing with homeless and drug addiction issues. It was one of the first cities to prioritize, at a legislative level, the idea that drug addiction is a health concern first and foremost. It is also a criminal concern, but jailing people and demonizing them for their addiction makes for full jails and not much change in behavior, and Portland was pioneering in that regard.

A lack of resources and political agreement is stifling the current effort to turn the tide on addiction and related problems. Legislation passed a few years ago to decriminalize drug use was supposed to have massive funding for treatment and outreach, but that's been slow to come, or hasn't come at all, in some cases. Of course it's going to fail, then.

One last thing. Police departments in major cities haven't been de-funded. When you look at what an entry level officer makes in some of these cities, it's pitiful. I can see why there are so many vacancies and people who retired or left the forces. But also: In order to prioritize police enforcement of things like retail theft, it has to be paid for. Again, political disagreement on raising taxes to actually pay for that effort and pay to recruit the kind of people needed to do that work. The police already have their work cut out for them. Sorry, theft of tents and diapers or tide pods...it's just not as important as other types of crime.

Here's the P.S, last last thing. Values are changing around work, family, and other social things. You can only live how you think you should live, but that doesn't mean everyone else needs to. I'm firmly with the others; if the way other people live and value things upsets someone on a personal level, then it's time to seek like-minded people and maybe move.