According to San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, yet another major retail store in San Francisco has announced that it will be reducing its hours in response to excessive theft.
The Castro Safeway on Market and Church Streets used to be open 24 hours per day, but its opening hours are now from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., effective October 24.
According to CBS SF Bay Area, Mandelman’s district includes the Market Street Safeway, and Safeway had reached out to him to discuss problems with theft.
“I think like a lot of retailers they’ve been experiencing increasing property crime and theft from their stores,” Mandelman said. “I think the last 6 months from what they say has been sort of — off the charts in terms of how bad it’s been. It’s sad, upsetting and frustrating.”
Mandelman described the closure as an “equity problem,” saying that he was working on organizing a meeting with San Francisco police, Safeway, and the city’s district attorney. He also said that, according to Safeway, police rarely arrest anyone for theft by the time they respond to a report.
“There’s a lot of low-income folks, seniors, folks with disability, who rely on that Safeway and other Safeways around the city,” he said.
“I feel like it’s definitely an inconvenience, not everybody can make it to the supermarket between those hours, so it’s a little frustrating, especially for me personally. I like to shop later on,” said Chris Rankins, who lives in the Castro neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Johnny Denham said, “It’s better for me to come up here after work, go shopping and go home.”
“Now it’s like I either have to go shopping before work, or on my days off, which I really don’t like doing,” he added.
The subject of crime is central to a growing effort to recall San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin.
Last week, two prosecutors in San Francisco added their names to the growing list of at least 50 attorneys who have resigned or been fired since Boudin took office in January 2020. At this point, around one-third of the department’s attorneys have left their jobs.
Prosecutors Brooke Jenkins and Don Du Bain have also joined an effort to recall Boudin and cited the district attorney’s lack of commitment to prosecuting crimes as a reason for their decision to step down.
“Chesa has a radical approach that involves not charging crime in the first place and simply releasing individuals with no rehabilitation and putting them in positions where they are simply more likely to re-offend,” Jenkins said in an interview with KNTV. “Being an African American and Latino woman, I would wholeheartedly agree that the criminal justice system needs a lot of work, but when you are a district attorney, your job is to have balance.”
According to Du Bain, Boudin “disregards the laws that he doesn’t like, and he disregards the court decisions that he doesn’t like to impose his own version of what he believes is just — and that’s not the job of the district attorney.”