Shop With a Cop: Customers at SF Store Must Have Escorts to Prevent Theft

When I can, I like to be a doting husband. As such, I've always wanted to give my wife one of those ultimate shopping experiences. I would like to give her a day in which she travels by limo or luxury SUV from one high-end boutique to another, sipping mimosas or margaritas, accompanied by a professional shopper who can advise her on all the right purchases. 

That is out of our price range, but residents of San Francisco can experience the next best thing at Fredricksen's Hardware and Paint in Cow Hollow. Retail theft has become so pervasive there that customers must be accompanied while shopping during certain hours. The public is greeted with a sign apologizing for the inconvenience and asking them to wait for their employee escort. 

Store manager Sam Black told KRON that the costs from the thefts continue to mount, adding that the store is seeing snatch-and-grabs in which thieves make off with not just tools but entire displays. Black has never seen a problem of such proportions in 24 years. 

During certain hours, not only are customers made to wait for an escort, but they are blocked from entering the store until that escort is ready to help them. The store has had to lock up tools and household hardware to deter shoplifters.

At Fredricksen's, thieves will take anything that isn't nailed down. I'm not exaggerating. Staff members have literally had to drill floor models of pots and pans to the shelves to prevent them from being stolen. Black said that the store has had to resort to such measures since it has not gotten help from the police or city leaders. 

One such city leader is supervisor Catherine Stefani, who weighed in on the situation:

This situation is tragic and embarrassing for our city, and it’s all the more reason to get serious about solving our police staffing crisis. We need more police on our streets, and we need them now. That’s why I’ll hold a series of hearings in March to push our city agencies to fill the hundreds of vacancies at the Police Department as soon as possible––to stop the bleeding, reverse the damage, and finally protect our residents and small businesses.

Someone should tell Stefani that San Francisco passed "tragic and embarrassing" about 500 miles back. San Francisco is nearing the edge of post-apocalyptic. Incidentally, "holding hearings" is code for "We're going to look like we are doing something while hoping we can ride the situation out until it goes away." 

Things are so bad in the Bidet-by-The-Bay because of civic leaders and their policies that allow criminals to run amuck. And let's not forget Gavin Newsom, who moved on to feast on the rest of California after gnawing on the corpse of San Francisco. Perhaps having the people who created the problem try to solve the problem is not the brightest of ideas. Then again, Stefani may be able to find a solution. After all, we know that San Francisco's woes are the result of COVID-19, climate change, and all of the usual suspects on the progressives' list.

San Francisco, of course, is America's zombie. It keeps decaying but never quite tips over and dies. It just lurches along, perhaps looking for more brains to eat — or to replace those lost by the city's leaders.