Shopping from behind locked glass-case barriers. Not just some goods, but now, all the goods..
Here's what appears to be a citizen video, from someone trying to get the attention of the local press, of the Safeway supermarket at Church and Market in an area between the Mission district and the Castro district.
Obviously, this is an attempt to thwart shoplifters, given the retail theft free-for-all going on in that city. The problem didn't just crop up out of nowhere, it's the result of city policy. Radical left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin, raised by Bill Ayers, and formerly Hugo Chavez's advisor, has declared shoplifting effectively legal if the value of the stolen goods is under $950. And much as he denies it when the seat gets hot, he actually means it:
According to the Washington Examiner:
As videos of brazen retail thefts in San Francisco draw national attention, The Examiner has obtained new data showing that District Attorney Chesa Boudin is prosecuting far fewer shoplifting cases than his predecessor.
The numbers show the prosecution rate for shoplifting cases involving a misdemeanor petty theft charge for a loss of $950 or less fell under Boudin, from 70 percent under former District Attorney George Gascon in 2019 to 44 percent in 2020 and 50 percent as of mid-June 2021.Prosecutors filed charges in 116 of 266 cases presented by police involving petty theft in 2020, compared to 450 of 647 cases in 2019, according to the data provided by the District Attorney’s Office.
It's all to keep low-level criminals out of jail, he claims, calling it "criminal justice reform," which is part of the Soros agenda. Joe Biden's daughter Ashley was reportedly partying with Chesa in Philadelphia this past weekend, so his idea is au courant with the rich cognoscenti.
But out on the mean streets of San Francisco, criminals have taken that notification to heart and instead gotten busy.
Countless videos have since been posted of shoplifters walking in and out of retail establishments in San Francisco with bags full of goods, fully confident that they'll never be prosecuted. Retail gangs have also gotten busy, doing full-blown broad daylight heists such as happened at Neiman-Marcus on Union Square earlier this month. Target has cut its hours. Walgreens has shut 17 stores. Stores can't take it anymore. And instead of defending themselves with cops and security guards, they're sealing off all the goods from any human contact.
Good luck getting some help opening those cases, and having the goods await for you at the store counter, now that stores can't get workers, based on the state of California's generous unemployment pay, which makes not working more attractive than actually having a job.
Meanwhile, shopping where you can't touch anything isn't much of a shopping experience, and far from foolproof, given that thieves often just smash through glass cases anyway, as they did at Neiman Marcus. It suggests that maybe the stores are just trying to hold on a bit longer before they have to shut down anyway and go to full e-commerce given they can't defend themselves any other way. Goodbye, city life, might as well life in those places without Kinkos.
The comments section to that video is a doozy. Here's a sample:
So much for quality of life. Chesa loudly proclaimed that he was not prosecuting "quality of life crimes" when he was elected a couple years ago.
How's the quality of life now in San Francisco, now that trust has vanished entirely between buyers and sellers, and the entire social capital is gone? Does he care that locals are now forced to shop behind glass barriers just to get shampoo?
As Boudin faces a voter recall, and 40% of San Francisco's residents say they plan to move out, rest assured, he tells us he's doing a good job and only the cops are to blame.
Instead of putting the criminals behind bars for thievery, as is done in normal societies, in San Francisco, now it's the goods that are behind bars. It's unintended consequences, for sure, the Caracas-ification of San Francisco, under the man he idolized, Hugo Chavez, making the beautiful city by the bay a total crime pit like Caracas. The left calls that progress.
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