Amidst a rash of property crimes and burglaries at high-end boutique stores throughout the city of San Francisco, Democratic Mayor London Breed announced that the city would restrict car access to the city’s Union Square district in an effort to curtail thefts.
Breed made the announcement at a press conference over the weekend. “We’re going to be making some changes to Union Square and how cars are able to access,” she said. “There will be limited access in terms of when you come to this area.”
Bill Scott, the Chief of the San Francisco Police Department, told reporters that there would also be a considerable increase of law enforcement in the neighborhoods “for the foreseeable future.”
KRON 4 Bay Area reported that it was unclear what the new restrictions are or when they will go into effect, as the holiday shopping season begins in earnest this week.
The new restrictions come as the Bay Area fell victim to a shoplifting spree over the weekend. Mobs robbed three high-end stores in the region over the weekend. The Daily Wire reported:
A mob of people armed with hammers entered a jewelry store in the city of Hayward, about 35 miles from San Francisco, at around 5:25 p.m. Sunday evening, according to local police. Police told KRON 4 that witnesses saw about nine people enter the store, smashing cases and taking an unknown amount of jewelry, then fled the scene in two vehicles …
In the town of Walnut Creek, about 30 minutes outside of San Francisco, 80 people wearing ski masks and carrying crowbars robbed a Nordstrom store Saturday night. The mob broke into the store, assaulting and pepper-spraying employees, and grabbing merchandise before driving away. The incident was described as “clearly a planned event,” according to a press release issued by the Walnut Creek Police Department. Three people were arrested in connection with the break-in, all of whom were from San Francisco or nearby Oakland, according to the release …
Eight people were arrested Friday night after a Louis Vuitton outlet was robbed in San Francisco. Multiple people broke windows and “emptied out” the shop, according to Fox News.
The city has faced an epidemic of “organized” burglaries in recent months. According to a survey published by the National Retail Federation, San Francisco is the fifth-most affected city in terms of “organized retail crime.” As previously reported by The Daily Wire, Walgreens was forced to close 17 stores over a five-year period because of shoplifting, with five more planned to close this month because of the excess of shoplifting.
“Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” a spokesman for the pharmacy chain said at the time. “Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average.”
One affected store claimed to have lost more than $1000 per day in stolen merchandise. Scott suggested the rise in burglaries might be related to a statewide voter-approved law that raised the threshold for felony shoplifting from $400 to $950.