Portland's Last Two Walmart Stores Closing Because of Shoplifting

The last two Walmart stores in Portland, Ore., are closing as of March 24 because “the stores are not meeting expectations financially,” the company said in a statement.

“This decision was not made lightly and was reached only after a thorough review process. We have nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S., and unfortunately, some do not meet our financial expectations. While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven’t performed as well as we hoped,” a spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.

The company claims there’s “no single cause” for the store closings but in December, President and CEO of Walmart Inc. Doug McMillon said that “theft is an issue. It is higher than what it has historically been.”

He also said that “if that is not corrected, over time, prices will be higher and/or stores will close.”

Nike Shoes has offered to pay Portland police to guard its Portland store. Over the past year, crooks have hit Consign Couture’s Washington Square location 19 times, stealing more than $56,000 dollars in merchandise, according to the owner. She’s closing the store for good. The crime spree has been fueled by lax police enforcement.

Apparently recognizing that some businesses see shoplifting as a problem, Portland police conducted an anti-shoplifting “blitz” on March 5 that netted:

• 34 arrests
• 28 warrants serviced
• 7 stolen vehicles recovered
• $3,006.32 in recovered stolen merchandise

Not very impressive. No wonder Walmart has given up.

Washington Examiner:

In 2022, the National Retail Federation revealed that retail shrink led to $94.5 billion in losses for companies. The 2022 National Retail Security Survey also found that retailers overwhelmingly pointed to increases in violence, shoplifting, organized retail crime, and employee theft due to the pandemic as reasons for heightened risk for their companies.

“The factors contributing to retail shrink have multiplied in recent years, and ORC is a burgeoning threat within the retail industry,” NRF Vice President for Research Development and Industry Analysis Mark Mathews said at the time. “These highly sophisticated criminal rings jeopardize employee and customer safety and disrupt store operations. Retailers are bolstering security efforts to counteract these increasingly dangerous and aggressive criminal activities.”

“For a long time we kind of let everyone get away with it, we just didn’t have the resources to actually touch on it, so now it’s good to actually be able to arrest people and hold them accountable, and hopefully, you know, get them help as they need,” said Jordan Zaitz of Portland Police’s Neighborhood Response Team.

Just letting everyone “get away with it?” And even enforcing the law demands that criminals be treated as victims who should get “help as they need”? Nothing is going to change in Portland until the police, the politicians, and the prosecutors all decide to punish lawbreakers and enforce the law. Otherwise, stores may as well put out a sign: “Everything on sale — if you want to pay for it. Otherwise, help yourself.”