San Francisco Business Owner: I'm Closing My Store Because This Is a "City of Chaos" Where Productive People Are Made to Be the Slaves of the Violent, the Criminal, and the Insane
Updated: Why Don't You Just Pay for Social Services For the Homeless?

Well I added a bit. He did call it a "City of Chaos," though.

Daily Wire describes Dave Smith's business Cotopaxi like this:

Cotopaxi, named for an active volcano in the rugged Andes Mountains of Ecuador, is a competitor of Patagonia that sells outdoor clothing and gear and touts its commitment to the environment, global hunger, and other causes. But Smith, who founded the Utah-based company in 2014, said his business never had a chance in the City by the Bay.

Smith posted his announcement on his LinkedIn page.

It's short. It's worth the full read.

It's sad, but San Francisco appears to have descended into a city of chaos. Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals, and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction. One of the most beautiful and amazing cities in the world is now a place where many no longer feel safe visiting or living.

Grand opening -- grand looting.

We opened a retail store a year ago on Hayes Street, the charming shopping district just blocks away from the famous Full House home. Our first week there, our windows were smashed and thousands of dollars of product was stolen.

They replaced the windows, and big store windows are expensive.

They replaced them four more times -- because looters smashed them four more times.

We replaced the window, and it immediately happened again (four times). We replaced with window with plywood as we waited for a month+ to get a metal security gate installed (demand for those gates is creating huge delays).

We let the criminals out of the jails so we could turn our homes and businesses into prisons.

As of today, we are closing the store due to rampant organized theft and lack of safety for our team. Our store is hit by organized theft rings several times per week.

You mean dedicated Black Lives Matter activists are liberating your colonizer goods in the name of emancipation, Bigot.

They brazenly enter the store and grab thousands of dollars of product and walk out. We started keeping the door locked and opening it only for customers, but even then, they'll have a woman go to the door, and then hiding individuals rush into the store as soon as the door opens. Our team is terrified. They feel unsafe.

Actually unsafe -- not "I heard Matt Walsh say something I disagreed with" unsafe.

Security guards don't help because these theft rings know that security guards won't/can't stop them.

No, every guard and LEO now know that if offers the slightest force against a criminal and the criminal suffers so much a scraped knee, he's going to prison.

The criminal, on the other hand, goes free.

Why even bother paying security guards? Just to show the criminals where the exits are, I guess.

It's impossible for a retail store to operate in these circumstances, especially when cities refuse to take any action (despite us paying taxes well above any other state we operate in). The city recently announced a reduction of police presence in this neighborhood, despite mass-scale crime.

Defund the police = defund the economy = defund civilization.

It makes me sad that I'm now avoiding San Francisco, a city I used to love. Last time my wife and I went in 2020, a drugged up person ran up to my wife's face and started screaming some of the most obscene things I've ever heard. She was terrified.

Are you Sanity-Shaming him, bigot?

During a previous trip, my rental car was broken into and everything was stolen out of our trunk. When calling the police to report the theft, they let us know this happens hundreds of times per day in the city and said it was our own fault for parking in the street.

In a way, I guess. People should flee the plague.

I grew up in Latin America and spent much of my adult life there, and I never felt this unsafe there. Something has to change in San Francisco.

It will.

It will get worse, and then California will demand the American taxpayers spend trillions to rebuild it, so they can burn it all down again.

Fuck you.

I'm with BLM -- Let it burn.

I'm progressive!

Update: Two comments left at this post -- one demands the government spend more money on social welfare, the next demands the shop-owner pay money to create a "community" and "services" for the homeless people molesting his wife.

What about the thieves? Should he pay them a Guaranteed Income Stipend?

Tylo Ward Outreach Professional with experience developing and managing impactful programs and events | Conservation and Sustainability Advocate | Public Policy & International Relations Graduate Student | ALLY [rainbow emoji] [black power fist emoji]

Its sad how almost every comment in here is saying we should use more violence and show less empathy in these circumstances, which is what started this problem in the first place. Grand idea, what if instead of treating property and capital as more important than humans, we start investing in affordable housing, social services for low-income and dispossessed peoples (actual services - with no strings attached), and begin to actually look at the root causes of the issues of San Fran (untethered capital interests and government corruption) as opposed to damning the individuals that are just victims of the problem. I don't think Cotopaxi is at fault for anything that has happened, but the idea that this has not been created and perpetuated by our current system is preposterous.

Edward Christenson
Edward Christenson
Helping employees get access to text a doctor any time, anywhere

I don't know why I am commenting on a post with this much attention because I find it pointless, but I do have to ask something. Has Cotopaxi or the businesses around tried to create some community for the homeless and unfortunate in that area?

Something to the affect of let's watch out for each other? Cotopaxi and the other businesses serving breakfasts, or dinners and being welcoming? Funding some public bathrooms right near by and offering old/unsellable product for free. Offering day jobs doing some cleaning of the street?

Could you create a coalition of those who will protect your street or watch out for it because they know they are welcomed and loved there?

It may draw a lot of attention, more than you can handle, but if you could start a dialogue with people, should you try? Even if they may be addicts or mentally ill? Could those people help send a message that your street is safe and criminals beware, everyone here watches out for each other?

I would want to at least try that. Maybe you hire social workers to work at your store?

The comments are all like this.

Gwen Carrington Digital Marketing Strategy | Brand & Business Development | Customer Conversion & Acquisition | B2B & Consumer Marketing | Inbound & Online Marketing | PR & Communications Management

People complain about crime and lawlessness and the need for a greater police force...

No, more police won't help.

What you need to focus on is creating opportunities for the people feel that crime is their only opportunity for survival.

Brian Larson Award-losing creative strategist, brand marketer and customer advocate.

"We do things differently." [Mocking the brand's slogan, I guess - ace.]

What if instead of amplifying tired rhetoric by calling for more police -- a conversation that propagates the existence of historically racist, oppressive, and violent institutions -- you used this platform to advocate for the vital programs -- education, health care, housing, etc. -- that need more funding to strengthen our communities and support more equitable well-being?

That would be different.

Updated: Why Don't You Just Pay for Social Services For the Homeless? &bodytext=Well I added a bit. He did call it a "City of Chaos," though. Daily Wire describes Dave Smith's business Cotopaxi like this: Cotopaxi, named for an active volcano in the rugged Andes Mountains of Ecuador, is a competitor of...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 02:15 PM

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