Walgreens has announced that it is closing a store in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago. They claim that the store is losing upwards of a million dollars a year to theft, so the reason for the closure is no mystery. They say that this particular store loses more in theft than any other store.
And yet… The political leaders in Chicago, who allow thieves to run wild, are angry at Walgreens.
They caused this, with their soft on crime policies, yet they are mad at Walgreens for closing the location.
FOX 32 in Chicago reported:
Walgreens to close Chatham store after more than $1M loss, cites theft and declining sales
Walgreens executives revealed the store lost more than a million dollars last year, partly due to declining prescription sales but also a massive amount of store theft.
“Theft at this store is 16 percent,” Johnson said. “That’s four times above the company average.”
And the company explained that they tried to stop theft.
“Lock boxes help us protect the merchandise in the store. A lot of the time, those lock boxes were getting destroyed. And that’s at a great cost to the company,” said Jason Vasquez, Walgreens District Manager.
They say Walgreens was spending $400,000 a year on security guards in the store, but there were still attacks on store employees.
“We’ve had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes… That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out,” said Lonnie Fuqua, the store’s manager.
Hellbound and Down 