CVS in Washington DC replaces stock with PHOTOGRAPHS of items as it battles with out-of-control crim

“Raul Aguilar, who oversees international organized crime cases for Homeland Security Investigations,

A Homeland Security Investigations report issued last year said estimates regarding organized retail crime found "the average American family will pay more than $500 annually in additional costs due to the impact.

"We're starting to see a lot more violent acts taking place," said David Johnston of the National Retail Federation. "It greatly impacts the retailer's ability to keep their environment safe."

In addition, said Aguilar, "some of these networks are tied to the terrorist financing networks around the world."


Top DHS official warns of 'absolute threat' to public safety, economy from organized retail crime

 

It's a reason. Neither you nor I know what the percent of the total reason is crime and what percent is the other factors, including online shopping.
The story is more than slanted, it dishonestly portrays crime as the only reason. As is your claim that crime is strictly due to 'liberal policies.'

out of curiosity, when do you think crime got so bad that it started causing drug stores to close?

 

IMO another issue is the negative impact this has on our overall society. The smash and grabs get a lot of visibility and it appears to be hopeless to try to stop. Does this further diminish the idea of respecting rules of a society? how does this impact kids watching this? Granted this isn’t happening everywhere all the time, but everyone sees them over and over.

 

You’ve offered no evidence of your claim. It’s a low quality argument. Anecdotal stories are for the easily misled.

 

I pointed out the falsehood in the quote. I didn't argue that stores haven't or don't close due to crime. Many do. As they do for many other reasons: offer products or services people don't want, mismanagement, costs exceeding revenue. etc..

Here are some facts to consider if think of yourself as a rational thinker:

--Larceny is the single most frequent index crime in the US

--Larceny rates, nationally, have declined by over 55% since their peak in 1991

--A significant amount of financial loss is from employee theft and corporate mismanagement together with retail (external) theft comprises most of the shrinkage. However, external theft is only about 35% of all shrinkage.

--Some cities have experienced sporadic instances of large-scale organized retail theft, but organized retail theft has been a significant factor for many decades. But usually on smaller scale. In other words, it's not some new phenomenon.

--It's not about lib or con policies, but stores themselves being unable to adequately prevent theft.

--Stores close for many reasons, sometimes crime is a or the leading factor, many times crime is not. And brick and mortar stores are under enormous pressure that isn't from crime, but from online retail)

 

No question that big chain stores, grocery or others, tend to avoid poorer parts of town. Always have. That really has nothing to do with what we're talking about though.

 

What are we talking about?

 

I think the stores they closed in San Fran and Portland were due largely to shrinkage, but that's not near the only reason they and Walgreen's are closing thousands of stores combined, or that Rite Aid filed BK. Their business model has evolved quickly, they haven't penetrated the health care market nearly as fast as expected, they overexpanded and way overpaid a rent load especially in urban areas well beyond a store's profit potential, and also b/c of crime. But it's not the only or prevailing factor.

Walgreens to close 60 VillageMD clinics as part of aggressive cost-cutting strategy

CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid are closing thousands of stores. Here's why | CNN Business

 

You really just made that up.

 

Which CVS is this? Or at least what part of town? I can’t find any location info other than that it’s in Washington. I don’t doubt that some of the city’s pharmacies are taking steps to combat crime, but the whole piece seems a bit sketchy and light on evidence

 

What if a photo of a box of Rice Krispies starts fetching $500 on Ebay?

 

Seems like it would set off alarm bells right away if organized crime thief’s are just casually loading up carts full of thousands of dollars worth of high value stuff and walking out the door. That’s just mind boggling to me. Wal-marts I’ve seen often have a police on duty parked right outside. Maybe Home Depot should do the same. Their “monitoring” can be pretty sophisticated from what I’ve seen reported on the technology side, big box stores have systems available to them that track suspicious behaviors and can employ facial recognition and behavior recognition, so it’s actually surprising to me they present themselves as powerless to stop these brazen thefts. It’s not unreasonable to have loss prevention meet these guys and have police ready to respond to noticeably suspicious activity, and I’d have thought their tracking would allow for fast response against these larger heists.

The “big city” crimes on the other hand are seemingly harder to stop. Especially when they have a specific plan of hitting a jewelry store or luxury niche retailer or a corner drug store. Seems like some of those were bigger groups (probably internet driven) and they knew they’d be in and out before the police got there. A lot of them also seem to be minors/teenagers. That’s a tougher nut to crack, but they have to be shown they won’t get away with it or it’ll probably keep getting worse.