Complete Meals is closing its San Francisco flagship retailer after a yr citing crimes

NEW YORK (CNN) – An enormous entire meals retailer in downtown San Francisco that opened simply final yr is briefly closing. The corporate stated rampant crime within the space compelled it to shut.

The almost 65,000-square-foot Trinity Place location within the metropolis’s Mid-Market space closed its doorways Monday to make sure “the protection” of its staff, a Complete Meals spokesman stated. Though Complete Meals didn’t present extra data on the situations resulting in the shop’s closure, the spokesperson added that it was a “troublesome choice to shut the Trinity retailer for now.” Affected staff can be relocated to close by shops.

The shop at eighth and Market Streets is not going to open on Tuesday, the spokesman stated. The store’s web site has additionally disappeared.

Introduced as a “flagship retailer” after opening in March 2022, The Complete Meals was one of many largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco. The shop bought 3,700 native merchandise and was designed with “nods to traditional San Francisco,” based on a press launch.

A San Francisco Complete Meals retailer closes a yr after it opened.

The San Francisco Commonplace, an impartial information web site, reported that this Complete Meals location decreased working hours and adjusted its restrooms final yr following theft after staff discovered syringes and whistles.

Matt Dorsey, San Francisco board member said on Twitter that he was “extremely upset” by the closure.

“Our neighborhood has been ready for this grocery store for a very long time, however we’re additionally conscious of the struggles they’ve skilled with retail drug theft, adjoining drug markets and the numerous safety points that include it,” Dorsey wrote.

Property crimes in San Francisco have garnered nationwide consideration on account of a number of high-profile movies of thieves in motion. Although nonetheless nicely under 2017 ranges, town noticed a 23% enhance in property crime between 2020 and 2022, with spikes in burglaries and thefts main the rise, based on knowledge from the San Francisco Police Division.

In the meantime, violent crime statistics in San Francisco have remained comparatively secure in recent times. Preliminary police knowledge stories 12 homicides in San Francisco this yr, up 20% from the identical interval final yr. General, there have been 56 homicides in San Francisco in 2022, the identical variety of homicides as within the metropolis in 2021.

In latest months, nationwide retailers have complained of theft affecting areas. Chains took motion by locking up on a regular basis merchandise like deodorants and toothpaste and including further safety guards. Nevertheless, a Walgreens govt lately admitted that the influence of the thefts might have been exaggerated.

A Cotopaxi retailer in San Francisco was briefly closed in October 2022 citing theft and worker security and reopened in mid-November.

Cotopaxi CEO Davis Smith stated in a LinkedIn put up on the time that the “large-scale theft and theft” put staff on the retailer in danger. However he additionally stated he regrets that the shop’s closure has grow to be the topic of political debate about crime in San Francisco and different cities.

“We’ve had many leaping in our assist, some who felt offended by my put up, and a few who politicized the closure of our retailer (as a result of sadly we reside in these occasions),” Smith wrote. “To be clear, I by no means anticipated that our choice to shut our Hayes Valley retailer would grow to be embroiled in political discourse.”

CNN’s Taylor Romine contributed to this report.

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