“It’s sad, but San Francisco has descended into a city of chaos,” wrote Davis Smith, founder and CEO of Cotopaxi, in a letter announcing the outdoor gear retailer’s decision to close the doors of its store in the city.
Located on 549 Hayes Street, Cotopaxi has been victim to having its windows smashed and thousands of dollars of merchandise stolen in the first week of operations, according to Smith. There have been four additional robberies since the initial instance.
In addition, Smith said that the store is “hit by organized theft rings several times a week.”
Cotopaxi tried to counter by only opening the door for customers. However, the alleged thieves would send in a decoy and bring the rest of the team when the employee opened the door.
The upscale Cotopaxi joins a number of retailers closing their doors in the city because of crime. Walgreens has shut 10 stores after announcing concerns of “organized retail theft.”
Individuals that are committing these crimes might be motivated by recent laws; such as limiting penalties for shoplifting below the threshold of $950 worth of goods.
“We have seen a rise in retail crime in the Bay Area resulting from pent-up tension caused by the pandemic and a decrease in policing,” Jay Roman, a broker from Nai Norcal who specializes in retail, told TRD. “Brazen, organized store robberies are often protected by ‘safe harbor’ laws which allow repeat offenders to act without any consequences on how it affects small businesses.”
Smith targeted local leaders for not addressing crime in the city.
“Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction,” he said. “One of the most beautiful and amazing cities in the world is now a place where many no longer feel safe visiting or living.”
Cotopaxi’s Smith isn’t the only high-profile CEO who had a run-in with crime in San Francisco. Hamid Moghadam, CEO of the industrial REIT Prologis, was robbed at gunpoint outside his Pacific Heights home in June. He called on local officials to address crime in the city as well.
“We pay some of the highest taxes, local and state, in the nation yet we have no sense of security. Protecting public safety should be the government’s top priority — that is the foundation to a successful city,” Moghadam wrote in a letter to San Francisco Mayor London Breed, the city’s Board of Supervisors and Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I am deeply concerned that our city may be so far down the path toward decline that we may never recover — or at least not for a long, long time.”
The city government might be feeling pressure to address crime after the recall of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin at the beginning of the summer by a 20-point margin. Supporters of the recall attributed the effort to Boudin being hesitant to prosecute a number of instances of crime.
Breed named Brooke Jenkins the interim district attorney and has pledged to take a tougher stance on crime. However, she cautioned that the city’s problem will take time to be resolved.
“I do believe that people are going to have to be patient,” Jenkins said in an interview with the New York Times. “They’re going to have to temper their expectations.”
However, Jenkins did recognize residents’ frustrations about feeling unsafe in the city.
“San Franciscans don’t feel safe; they feel like they are constantly at threat of being victimized in one way or another,” she said. “We’ve got to work hard to serve as a deterrent to whatever is driving crime — be it the pandemic, be it lenient policies that criminals have become aware of.”
In his letter, Smith highlighted a trip he took to the city in 2020 when “a drugged-up person ran up to my wife’s face and started screaming some of the most obscene things I’ve ever heard.” On another trip he said his rental car broke down and belongings from the trunk were stolen; law enforcement told him that this “happens hundreds of times per day in the city and said it was our own fault for parking in the street.”
“I grew up in Latin America and spent much of my adult life there, and I never felt this unsafe there,” Smith wrote. “Something has to change in San Francisco.”
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