In a direct attack on Starbucks and shopping-loving mothers across the United States, Target is closing nine of its retail stores. During pumpkin spice season, no less!
I jest, though it’s true that Target’s typical shopper is a millennial mother. Access to fall decor aside, it should be deeply troubling to us all that the retail giant is partially pulling out of several major cities, making affordable grocery, clothes, and household goods shopping more difficult for those who need it.
The stores being shuttered are in New York City, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle — all deep blue cities that have refused to do much of anything at all about rising crime and illegal immigration.
“We 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 said in a statement released Tuesday. “We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all.”
After Target partnered with a Satanism-promoting transgender designer and pushed bikini bottoms marketed toward transgender women for its Pride collection earlier this year, the retail giant lost 5.4% in revenue. So, there may now be a temptation to gloat as it closes a whopping nine stores, but Target’s move is just another example of how rising crime makes life worse for everyday people.
It’s not limited to Target either. “Home Depot, Target, Lowe’s, Dollar Tree, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Ulta are among those that flagged shrink — the depletion of inventory caused by something other than sales — during their second-quarter earnings calls,” the Washington Post reported earlier this month.
A regional grocery chain just announced that one Washington, D.C., location will no longer stock certain name-brand items and will have an employee checking receipts at the door; earlier this year, Walmart closed half of its Chicago stores.
Videos of shoppers rushing a Walgreens and stealing high-dollar items inevitably receive support from socialists online (e.g., ”They’re just stealing bread to support their families!” or “Corporations deserve it”). These misdeeds may seem minor to denizens of Whole Foods, but they are driving companies to close their locations that wrestle with crime and don’t bring in sufficient revenue. When another Target location closes, it’s not CEO Brian Cornell who feels the sting but lower- and middle-class shoppers who just lost another location to buy bread.