“We cannot afford to hurt ourselves by constantly taking from the store, because that means that everybody is going to be without a place to eat.”
The store in question is the Giant located along Alabama Ave SE in Washington, D.C.: the only grocery store located in Ward 8. What should be a banal recognition of reality comes from Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White Sr.
White’s admonition to thieves followed worrying remarks from Giant Foods spokeswoman Felis Andrade about “significant” levels of theft and violence making the store increasingly “difficult to operate.” According to the Washington Post, the Giant is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars each month even after investing a hundred thousand dollars in security upgrades.
Although spokeswoman Andrade assured reporters that Giant Foods has no “current plans” to shut down the store in Ward 8, she pleaded for community help combating “the theft and violence that continues to escalate.”
The situation is not looking good.
Councilmember White is doing his part; other prominent community members are not. Jo Patterson of the East of the River Public Safety Consortium refers to theft as survival, sanctioning criminal behavior. Tiffany Williams, CEO of Martha’s Table, naively opines, “The reality is we just need greater investment in Ward 8.”
Williams should understand the reality that business are not charities; they sell goods to paying customers for a profit. If these goods are stolen and the store is losing more money than its making, it will eventually exit the market. In the case of the Ward 8 Giant, this would mean depriving the neighborhood’s residents of their only grocery store.
Patterson and Williams do a great disservice to the law-abiding, hard-working families of Ward 8 by carrying water for the criminals who are increasing the Giant’s cost of doing business. They should take a cue from Councilmember White and defend commutative justice (read: rule of law): that which, in the words of Adam Smith, “is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice” of society and without which society “must in a moment crumble into atoms.”
Instead of asking the Giant to throw good money after bad, Williams and Patterson should endorse an investment in law enforcement to decrease the cost of doing business in Ward 8.