XPost: alt.business, nyc.politics, talk.politics.guns
XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics

https://nypost.com/2024/05/18/us-news/theft-plagues-nyc-retailers- drugstores-closing/

New York City is losing drugstores as retail theft continues to surge.

Gotham has logged 21,578 shoplifting complaints this year through May 12,
up 5% from the 20,552 thefts during the same period last year.

Manhattan has seen 8,896 incidents of retail theft alone.

Crime is so rampant, national chains like Target, CVS and Walgreens are
closing locations and tempering expansion plans.

Target announced at the end of last year the closure of nine stores across
four states, including one in Harlem, due to theft.

�We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized
retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,� the company said.

While shopping patterns have changed, with people making more purchases
online, theft is �a factor� in chains closing up shop, said one Manhattan retail broker.

�The old Love drugstores and Price Wise were 2,500-square-foot stores that seemed to succeed years ago,� said Big Apple retail broker Robin Abrams.
�Then they mostly closed as they could not compete with the 10,000- to 20,000-square-foot Duane Reade, Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid stores. Now we
are �over- drugstored� and . . . and these chains will operate less stores
in smaller spaces.�

Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and an adjunct professor at John
Jay College of Criminal Justice, said part of the problem was that
politicians shrugged off retail theft instead of targeting it.

�Our politicians have told us, �Shoplifting is not a problem,'� Giacalone
said. �And then all of a sudden, we start seeing all these issues that are happening because many of these crimes have been downgraded by the
politicians themselves . . . Eventually you gotta pay the piper.�

Retail theft, which the NYPD only recently added to its crime-tracking
CompStat reports, has nearly doubled in the city in the last six years.
The number of incidents in Gotham steadily climbed from 32,254 complaints
in 2017 to 37,922 incidents in 2019, before falling during the height of COVID-19 in 2020. From 2021 to 2023 citywide complaints increased again
from 43,892 to 59,137, the data indicate.

The climate has made it tough for big drugstores already in the midst of downsizing.

Walgreens is on track to reduce its national footprint by roughly 200
stores in fiscal 2024, CEO Timothy Wentworth said in a call with analysts
about the company�s first-quarter earnings. CVS announced plans in 2021 to shrink its national retail footprint by 900 stores: 300 each in 2022, 2023
and 2024.

In the Big Apple, locations are shuttering, with drug store companies
forgoing some leases upon their expiration and putting other spaces up for sublease.

In Manhattan, five former CVS outposts are on the market, according to
broker Joanne Podell, who is handling the leasing of the spaces. Walgreens
has 17 former stores on the market in Manhattan, per a list from real
estate firms JLL and SRS.

And Rite Aid is shuttering 53 additional stores in nine states as part of
the company�s bankruptcy proceedings. That is on top of an initial list of
154 store closures.

�When you have a local drugstore, a local business, close down, you�re
also losing jobs, you are inconveniencing the residents, and it has a long
term impact on the quality of life of the community,� Mayor Eric Adams
said.

Three weeks before her local CVS closed for good at 2495 Broadway at West
93rd Street in February, Maria Kucer, 61, said she saw a guy �scooping
stuff� from the shelves into his black duffel bag. Kucer was told the same
man had hit the store two days earlier. And that wasn�t the first time
Kucer witnessed stealing at the store.

�I felt they were stealing from me,� Kucer said of the thieves.
�Inevitably I ended up paying more for items as a result of the thefts and since the cashiers, pharmacists and staff felt like family to me, the
thieves made me mad.�


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Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
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President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.

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