"Police said arrests were made" What a joke that is. That rinse and repeat kabuki dance has gone on for months. They arrest people, they are released on bail and are out on the street again the next night, rinse and repeat, then the DA refuses to prosecute any of them and does a mass dismissal of the cases, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. What a complete waste of time and energy it must be for the cops there. They are supposed to just go out ands shuffle them around night after night, knowing that it they make any real move at all, the city and the community will immediately side with the protesters and end their careers. The complain about the use of tear gas there and want it ended. Fine, replace it with mustard gas.
Yup. Two years ago I noticed that the big Fred Meyer's chain (the northwest's Kroeger stores) started closing stores just because they were losing too much to shoplifting and more energy was being put into managing the homeless encamped in and outside the stores. Then the local lefties pipe up about "food deserts" in the city where poor people have no access to grocery stores and basic supplies. Yeh. think about it.
coincidentally, I saw yesterday that they were cutting underperformers including Portland. I can already imagine how the MAGAtards at twitter are spinning this one given the thread title: https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-store-closings-2023-full-list
I know of one person in Bellevue, WA who bragged about shoplifting $150,000 in two years from Fred Meyer. Kroger has a profit margin of 1.61%. To make up that loss, Kroger would have to sell over $9.3 million dollars worth of merchandise. I wonder if part of the grocery inflation we have been seeing is related to shoplifting and riot related looting? Rhetorical question. I wonder which socio-economic groups are affected most by inflation as measured by percentage impact to descretionary spending? Could we include the urban working poor in that group? Aren't most urban working poor Democrat voters? A bunch of Rhetorical questions, you say? Rhetorical question! Now for the money shot: When one repeatedly votes against their own interests and expect a different result do they not have themselves to blame?
Bottom line, no business closes a profitable location. The reasons may vary, sometimes the community doesn't support the business, sometimes it's piss poor management, and sometimes they can't raise their prices high enough to cover the theft. Anyone when a shred of intellectual honesty knows what the problem is in Portland. Crime! Crime which is advocated and facilitated by the local government. No business can overcome that.
Per capita crime is higher in rural areas, but store security in those places obviously are dealing with fewer criminals.
A lot of crimes go unreported in urban areas. Calling the police seems futile if they often don't respond, or if they do, nothing ever seems to happen.