Shops closing in my neighborhood

[EddMarkStarr]

My neighborhood in North Seattle is starting to look like a sci-fi film set with abandoned storefronts and shuttered windows.

The problem is increasing crime and growing homeless encampments. Seattle has problems, but Washington D.C. is really hurting.

Crime destroys the retail environment that keeps D.C. area neighborhoods livable.

 

[metta]

"CA is poised to make our largest-ever investment to combat organized retail crime. With a $267 million investment, we will see more takedowns, more police, more arrests, & more felony prosecutions. When criminals walk out with stolen goods, they’ll walk straight into jail cells."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1701762982680862768

 

[EddMarkStarr]

Everyone tells me I need to move. To where? Every place seems to have conditions similar to Seattle.

Family owned businesses struggle with more than crime. Sometimes the landlord forces a closure.

 

[backagain]

It is the way of the world. Landlord probably got more rent from the current business,

 

[jjonn3]

"CA is poised to make our largest-ever investment to combat organized retail crime. With a $267 million investment, we will see more takedowns, more police, more arrests, & more felony prosecutions. When criminals walk out with stolen goods, they’ll walk straight into jail cells."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1701762982680862768

And then the Los Angeles District Attorney will let them go.

Making it public that any theft up to $950 you will just be given a ticket and released has sent crime soaring -

 

[metta]

Everyone tells me I need to move. To where? Every place seems to have conditions similar to Seattle.

Family owned businesses struggle with more than crime. Sometimes the landlord forces a closure.

I remember doing research when I was in college on renting spaces in malls and shopping centers. The rents were so high in the good locations that I didn't see how the stores could make it. And the ones that were able to make it, the rents would jump. It seemed like a constant battle with landlords unless one could buy their own building.

 

[Latimer]

^ Mr. Newsom has been part of the problem ever since his days as Mayor of San Francisco and Attorney General of California, as have most of his fellow Democratic politicians. Only now that he has a national profile and national aspirations has he changed his position on this and other issues. He is now talking about challenging the 9th District Court homeless decision ("Boise") that severely limited the actions of local officials in dealing with homeless encampments. The decision is five years old and only now has he had the guts to publicly question it. Where were he and his fellow self-styled progressives five years previously?

I was recently in Arizona and never saw any graffiti, not in rich neighborhoods or poor in any of the cities I visited, including the largest, Phoenix. Likewise trash on the sidewalks and in the streets.

I return home to Los Angeles and there is graffiti everywhere but the richest residential neighborhoods, trash on the streets and sidewalks and homeless encampments under the freeway overpasses. The most notable accomplishment of our last mayor, Eric Garcetti--now US Ambassador to India--was painting Black Lives Matter in bold all-caps on Hollywood Boulevard.

By now many of you have probably read about the Minneapolis councilwoman who was all for "disbanding" the police until she herself was the victim of a violent attack:

https://nypost.com/2023/09/07/anti-...official-left-bloodied-in-violent-carjacking/

 

[LeicsDom]

It is no different in the UK
I think the problem is twofold. Firstly, local councils are too greedy for business taxes and that drives struggling businesses off the High Streets. Secondly, shopping habits have changed. So much more is done online that physical shops are becoming redundant.
I much prefer a physical shop but I can understand why people with busy lives find it easier to shop late at night or whenever they have time

 

[Dargelos]

Some stores have seen shoplifting rise as a consequence of installing automatic self serve tills. These tills make shoplifting physicaly easier but also make crime more likely by dehumanising the store environment. Robotills, I hate them.

 

[Thad1527]

There's so much retail theft in Philadelphia. I hate thieves.

I'm proud of my city. It's changing daily with quite a lot of new construction. The physical changes seem good; new supermarkets! New housing! There's lots to offer visitors and residents. But it certainly isn't perfect. I ignore homeless people whenever I'm in the city.

 

[Peloso]

Unfortunately, no distinction will be made between the kid who steals earbuds as part of a Tik Tok challenge and the poor single mother who's just trying to feed her baby.

 

[fredroy]

Self check out is fine to me if the registers act like I have more smarts than a real stupid dog. Walmart, for ex, scan your beer or super glue or whatever that needs age approval and you use to have to stand there like a fool until someone showed up. Now it flags, the little red light on the pole starts blinking but you can keep on scanning and bagging your stuff. You don't have to put everything on the shelf. But three 30 packs of beer, just scan them, leave in the cart.
As a bonus, scanners have improved and they have barcodes on the produce now. You don't need to know 4011 for bananas or 4076 for green leaf lettuce or 4072 for plain old russet potatoes. The scanner sees the code and waits for you to set the item on the scale for weighing. But you can still look the produce up with pretty pictures. It's actually pretty slick.

HEB on the other hand, you have to scan and set each item on the shelf and the scanners are sloooow, like, at most 10 items per minute. When I checked I'd run 35 pushing 40 IPM and that was bagged as I went. Why handle it twice? Heh, I'd have six folks in line and the other checkers would have two and my six were gone while the other checkers were just finishing #2.
I don't do self check at HEB if I have more than a couple of things (which is almost never) because waiting for the checker to finish the person in line in front of me is faster by a lot.

Walmart does their "need to see your receipt" at the exit once in a while. I show them I have a receipt but oh, I know the Boss said to, but you ain't pawing through my groceries to verify the receipt. Mostly because I fill the bags full and I'll be damned if I'm going to re-bag my stuff. Y'all think I'm shop lifting, have the cops waiting outside. So far, it's ok.

 

[me203]

And then the Los Angeles District Attorney will let them go.

Making it public that any theft up to $950 you will just be given a ticket and released has sent crime soaring -

Assuming the $950 is cumulative (all items stolen from one place coming to a total of less than $950), then at least it will give criminals-to-be in school incentive to learn basic math skills! (So they can make sure they stay under $950 as they are doing their crime spree.)

 

[rareboy]

Shops closing is also about demographics and the decline of a need for physical retail space.

As I observed on Friday, driving back through several small villages around here...if 40 years ago you had told people that the bank branches would close and the buildings would turn into Weed shops...they would have thought you were stoned out of your head.

 

[metta]

The only ones I have seen close in the cities all around me are Big Lots, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Rite Aid. Those are all companies that have had major financial issues.

In the city I live in, nothing really closed that I have seen. We do have empty spaces in the new building in the downtown. I think they might be asking too much for the rents. And this is in S. CA, where the news is obsessed about people moving away. We still have a huge shortage of housing, even with people moving away. The city I live in has homeless issues as well. When they built the metro, we got 2 of the stations, and we are the last stations on the route. At the end of each night they would kick all the homeless off the metro, so they can clean them, so we ended up with a lot of homeless in our city. The extension is being built and should be done I think by 2025. So we won’t be the last station anymore. And my city plans on opening a shelter by the end of this year.

 

[Dargelos]

Walmart does their "need to see your receipt" at the exit once in a while. I show them I have a receipt but oh, I know the Boss said to, but you ain't pawing through my groceries to verify the receipt. Mostly because I fill the bags full and I'll be damned if I'm going to re-bag my stuff. Y'all think I'm shop lifting, have the cops waiting outside. So far, it's ok.

More people need to stand up for themselves when they try this on. As soon as the machine has accepted your payment, the goods become your property. The staff in the shop have no right to touch your property, it is now yours and no longer any business of them.

 

[Alistair]

More people need to stand up for themselves when they try this on. As soon as the machine has accepted your payment, the goods become your property. The staff in the shop have no right to touch your property, it is now yours and no longer any business of them.

The answer isn’t standing up and not showing your receipt, but instead not shopping at the store.

 

[Dargelos]

Well, yes, if you can, but in many towns there is no alternative, all the other shops have gone out of business.

 

[EddMarkStarr]

One of my neighbors was assaulted walking home from the nearby chemist. We're going to lose all our closest shops eventually. I hate having to use a car for every errand.

 

[Thad1527]

If it's any consolation...
In the 1970's some congregants of Wicker Park Lutheran Church in Chicago were mugged...on their way to church.
Today Wicker Park is considered a prestige neighborhood where you're far more likely to be run over by a baby stroller.