SAN FRANCISCO—Stores in San Francisco announced that they are locking their frozen food products in chained coolers to mitigate shoplifting.
In a tweet posted Monday, July 17, Walgreens located on 16th and Geary revealed that customers will now require staff assistance to access frozen foods. According to employees, on a regular occasion shoplifters clean out all the pizza and ice cream every night. They usually encounter a shoplifter about twenty times a day where thieves will fill their bags with stolen goods then leave the location.
Several videos posted online show that all doors to frozen microwavable meals are locked off with several large metal locks. The videos reveal that other portions of the store have been locked down behind plexiglass and glass cabinets that start from the floor and go to the ceiling. Products like hair dye, shaving cream, cosmetics and over-the-counter medicine require an employee’s assistance.
Someone who goes by the handle Tim_I_Huang posted a tweet that described similar measures are being done at CVS. “Night time trip to the CVS pharmacy to get medicines, and I witness police car in front called to scene because of theft. Of course many items locked up too like the frozen section!”
The city has lost at least five Walgreens stores throughout the years due to retail crime.
One shopper stated that it is unfortunate that stores must go to this extent to keep their stores open.
The National Retail Federation revealed in a survey conducted last year that the Bay Area is the second-most hard hit metropolitan area of theft in the past two years.
Police records indicate that 2,900 shoplifting incidents were reported in 2022 which is a 34% from 2020.
