San Franciso: Blatant Theft Causes Walgreens to Close Stores

Walgreens stores are closing in San FranciscoCreative Commons License from Wikimedia: [[File:Walgreen's (15037317921).jpg|Walgreen's_(15037317921

San Francisco, CA--Theft is on the rise in San Franciso and thieves don't seem to care if you're watching. Thieves are getting more brazen. They don't care who is watching or recording them in the act of their thievery.

You might want to consider open theft as a side effect of coming life restarting and people who are still unemployed looking to have the items they considered normal, but Walgreens in San Francisco presents statistics that tell a different story. Walgreens, for example, has closed more than 17 stores in San Francisco in the last five years.

Why? Mainly because of theft. And thieves are bolder than ever. Consider this footage of one SanFrancisco Walgreens, where the thief rode a Lyft bike into the store in broad daylight and filled a garbage bag full of hair products. One security guard watched and filmed the whole incident and didn't do anything to stop it except try to grab the bag as the bicycle drove by.

On Twitter, the KGO-TV reporter Lyanne Melendez wrote: "This just happened at the @Walgreens on Gough & Fell Streets in San Francisco #NoConsequences," she wrote, tagging Boudin.

San Francisco Walgreens theftScreenshot by author.

Walgreens advises staff in the stores to make safety the first priority and forwarded the video to the police.

In a statement, Walgreens said, "Unfortunately, this is another example of blatant retail theft, which is an ongoing problem for several retailers in San Francisco," a spokesperson for the company.

Walgreens told ABC 7 News, in an email: "The company has told members of the Board of Supervisors that theft in their San Francisco stores is four times the average of their stores across the country. They also spend 35 times more on security guards in San Francisco."

Why aren't thieves arrested? The Police Officers' Association points fingers at the D.A.'s office.

"And even if somebody does get arrested, we can all talk about the track record of the D.A.'s office," said Tony Montoya of the Police Officers' Association, who has criticized that office for failing to prosecute certain robberies.

Last year the Board of Supervisors cut funding that was required for Police Academy classes, but this year the Mayor is proposing an increase in their budget and pulling in support.

"Don't come out in solidarity to support a community and then cut away the kinds of solutions that will help address those challenges. This is a community that wants more and we need to do better by them," said San Francisco Mayor London Breed

San Francisco Police Officers are blasting the D.A.'s office over Walgreen thefts.

A spokesperson for the San Francisco District Attorney's office called the video "infuriating":

"[W]hen they are, we prosecute the vast majority of them," she said. "But because arrests are so infrequent, our office has been proactively partnering with stores like Walgreens on prevention programs as well as partnering with other jurisdictions – which last year, led to the recovery of over $11 million in stolen merchandise.

So far no arrests have been made in connection with the video.

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