Another San Francisco Grocery Store Closes Citing Theft, Safety

Safeway announced on Tuesday that it would close its Webster Street supermarket on Feb. 7, a blow to San Francisco’s Fillmore and Japantown neighborhoods that have pushed to convince the grocery chain to keep the struggling store open...

The company said it was “proud” of its 40-year history in the Fillmore but that the decision to close the store was made “due to ongoing concerns about associate and customer safety, as well as persistent issues with theft.”...

San Francisco Police Department incident reports include complaints of frequent car breakins, assaults, loitering and illegal dumping. The store’s self-checkout kiosks were removed last December in an effort to reduce theft.

Safeway was planning to close this store back in April but in response to a public outcry the agreed to hold it open a bit longer. They made a real effort to deal with the crime problem, including installing security gates near the self-checkout area. But the scale of the problem was simply too big to deal with.