Vicky Arias, FISM News
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In the wake of soft-on-crime policies, Nordstrom joins the exodus of 20 other retailers who have either closed their doors or announced a plan to leave downtown San Francisco since 2020.
Nordstrom, located in Westfield Mall, and Nordstrom Rack will close in August and July, respectively. In an email to employees, a chief officer from Nordstrom wrote that “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”
A representative of Westfield Mall stated that the store’s closing exemplifies the worsening of conditions in the downtown area.
“The planned closure of Nordstrom underscores the deteriorating situation in downtown San Francisco,” the representative said. “A growing number of retailers and businesses are leaving the area due to the unsafe conditions for customers, retailers, and employees, coupled with the fact that these significant issues are preventing an economic recovery of the area.”
Additionally, after being beset by a raft of crime, Whole Foods Market in mid-April announced a decision to temporarily close its downtown San Francisco store, citing safety concerns for its employees.
According to the New York Times, “people threatened [Whole Foods] employees with guns, knives, and sticks. They flung food, screamed, fought, and tried to defecate on the floor, according to records of 568 emergency calls over 13 months, many depicting scenes of mayhem.”
San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey said in an April tweet that he is “incredibly disappointed” by the store’s decision “but sadly unsurprised.”
“Our neighborhood waited a long time for this supermarket, but we’re also well aware of problems they’ve experienced with drug-related retail theft, adjacent drug markets, and the many safety issues related to them,” Dorsey stated.
LEFTIST POLICIES IN ACTION
Many conservatives view businesses fleeing the city as a consequence of leftist policies.
San Francisco residents voted to recall the city’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, in June 2022 after rejecting his soft-on-crime policies.
During his campaign, Boudin promised to “not prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes.”
“Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted,” Boudin stated before he was elected.
According to Fox News, “larceny-theft, which includes vehicular smash and grabs and shoplifting, is up 15% since the beginning of this year compared to the same time frame in 2021.”
Rampant drug use and criminal-first policies have converged upon San Francisco to create what many view as an unsafe environment.
Reports of blatant open-air drug markets, where drug dealers and users openly engage in illegal drug sales and use, have riddled San Francisco’s reputation with reports that the city has fallen prey to lawlessness and liberal agendas.
Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths (MADD), an organization of concerned citizens working to help drug addicts and “break-up the open-air drug scenes,” have called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to shut down the drug markets.
“As mothers of children killed by fentanyl and mothers of homeless addicts living on the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles, we’re expanding our advertising campaign statewide and calling on Governor Newsom to immediately close the deadly open-air drug markets that are killing children,” MADD states on its website.
The organization continues, saying that “it’s no wonder that hundreds of thousands [of] people and businesses have left California. Many of them left citing our open-air drug markets.”