Target Corp. announced Tuesday that it is closing nine stores in four far-left cities because organized retail crime is threatening the safety of employees and customers.
Target is closing three stores each in Portland, Ore. and in the San Francisco and Oakland market, two stores in Seattle, and one New York City store in Harlem, according to a statement on the company’s website. The store closings are effective October 21.
The company said it “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.” Target can only be successful “if the working and shopping environment is safe for all,” the company said.
Target said that before making the “difficult decision” to shutter the nine stores, it invested heavily in “strategies to prevent and stop theft.” The company said it added security staffers, hired third-party guard services, upped its investments in cyber defense, and partnered with a U.S. Department of Homeland Security division focused on combatting retail theft. It has also invested in locking cases for products that are prone to theft, the company said.
“Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully,” Target’s statement said.
Earlier this year, Target executives said they expected inventory shrink — the industry term for lost or stolen inventory — to reduce the company’s profitability by more than $500 million compared to last year, according to the Star Tribune newspaper. Last month, Target’s CEO, Brian Cornell, reported that the company’s stores saw a 120 percent increase in thefts involving violence or threats of violence during the first five months of the year, the paper reported.
Target “continues to face an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime,” Cornell said, according to the Star Tribune.
Target is not the first major retailer to announce that it is closing stores in far-left cities where crime has been on the rise.
In 2021, Walgreens cited organized and rampant theft as one reason why it was closing stores in San Francisco. Whole Foods shuttered its downtown San Francisco store in April, a year after opening, due to deteriorating street conditions. In May, Nordstrom announced it was closing both of its San Francisco stores because crime has made it difficult to do business in the city.
In June, the owners of the Westfield Mall in downtown San Francisco announced they had stopped making payments on the property and were pulling out of the troubled city. A recent National Review analysis of emergency management data found that over just the last three years, authorities have been called to the mall more than 5,000 times for a variety of reasons, from shoplifting and purse-snatchings to reports of assaults, people with knives and guns, mentally disturbed people in crisis, and indecent exposure.
In April, outdoor fitness retailer REI announced it was closing its last Portland store, citing “increased crime in our neighborhood and beyond” and the safety of employees and customers. That followed an announcement in November by Rain PDX, a Portland-based clothing shop, that it was closing its store “due to the constant, and unrelenting, criminal behavior, coupled with escalating safety issues for our employees.”
In a note posted on a store window, the owners wrote that the shop had been broken into 15 times in less than two years.
“Our city is in peril,” the shop wrote. “Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city’s current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses.”