Utah-based outdoor apparel brand Cotopaxi is shutting down its store in San Francisco due to worries about crime plaguing the city, CEO Davis Smith said on Tuesday.
The Cotopaxi store in San Francisco opened in 2021. In the first week, store windows were smashed and thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise was stolen, Smith said.
Though the company replaced the windows, they were again smashed four different times, so the company replaced the windows with plywood while waiting for metal security gates to be installed.
The store was hit by organized theft rings “several times a week.” Cotopaxi tried to keep the door locked and only open it for customers, but criminals began recruiting women to pose as potential customers, Smith said. As the door opened for these women, the people involved in the organized theft rushed inside.
“Our team is terrified. They feel unsafe. Security guards don’t help because these theft rings know that security guards won’t/can’t stop them,” Smith wrote, while insisting that it is “impossible” for a retail store to operate under these circumstances.
Rise in Crime
As of Oct. 16, crime in San Francisco is up by 7.4 percent compared to the same period in 2021, according to data from the San Francisco Police Department. Larceny theft is up by 15.4 percent, motor vehicle theft by 4.7 percent, and robbery by 4.4 percent.In August, the Castro Merchants Association from the Castro district of the city asked leaders to take action against crime and other issues and threatened to stop paying fees and taxes if the city failed to respond.
“It’s not the only thing, but it’s one of the things, and so as we think about getting a vibrant economy back that we want to have here, we’re going to have to address the crime issue,” he said.
Only 47 percent of respondents said the Bay Area is a safe place to live, compared to 63 percent in 2019.
