Nordstrom’s flagship store in crime-plagued San Francisco closed its doors for the last time Sunday in a mall where fentanyl “zombies” now roam outside among drug dealers and thieves.
Dozens of shoppers were seen at the weekend perusing the mostly barren aisles for souvenirs from the once-luxurious department store – which once featured a five-star spa, champagne and caviar bar and live pianist – as police patrolled outside.
“It’s a sad day,” a shopper named Julie told ABC 7 of the store, which was greeted with much fanfare when it first opened at the corner of Market and Fifth streets in the San Francisco Center mall 35 years ago.
“It’s a beautiful store. It has become an anchor in San Francisco,” the buyer added of Nordstrom, which has occupied 312,000 square feet on five floors at the mall.
Another customer, Denise Alexander, said, “It’s kind of sad, being a San Francisco native, just seeing how downtown is gone.”
A drug-addled homeless man was seen slumped on the sidewalk outside the store Sunday before it closed.
A man struggles to his feet as he holds a small pipe and tries to retrieve an unknown drug from the rocky path in front of Nordstom’s door.
“Yeah, that’s normal here,” one shopper told The Post as she walked out of the mall.
Nearby on Market Street, a homeless man sleeps in an excavator abandoned by city workers, while around San Francisco’s federal building, on government property, users smoke and shoot drugs.
“We have attracted many people with mental illness and drug addiction because [Mayor London Breed’s] policy because of what I like to call ‘toxic charity,’” Ricci Lee Wynne, a community activist who lives less than a mile from Central San Francisco, told The Post.
“We provide [the addicts] with equipment, we give them free phones, we provide them with general assistance with almost no need for sobriety. It makes no sense,” Wynne said. “Taxpayers’ money should not be used to fuel this group’s drug habit.”
Nordstrom’s flagship store in crime-ridden San Francisco closed its doors for the last time Sunday. David G. McIntyre for the NY Post
Dozens of shoppers wander the mostly empty aisles of the 312,000-square-foot Nordstrom’s.Getty Images
Shoppers at the store on its last day called the closing “sad” and “sad.” Getty Images
Nordstrom announced in May that it would close the store and the nearby Nordstrom Rack due to declining sales, with Jamie Nordstrom — the company’s chief store officer — stating “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”
An employee at the store told ABC 7 that the closing was “definitely due in part to crime in the area – COVID-19 has had a big impact.”
Law enforcement dispatch data obtained by the San Francisco Standard shows police patrolled the Westfield mall regularly over the past year as crime spiraled out of control.
Officials recorded nearly 560 “pass calls,” in which police patrol the area to indicate a police presence, at the mall during the year ending May 1, 2023.
The now-closed shop once featured a five-star spa, a champagne and caviar bar and a live pianist.Getty Images
Frustrated locals say they are tired of seeing well-known stores disappear from neighborhoods while drug use and sales and homelessness flourish.
Wynne said she was attacked by drug dealers when she recently tried to film their operation at the corner of Market and Eighth streets.
On his Sunday walk, he points to the tents that block buildings that once housed restaurants, hotels and banks.
A security guard stands outside the San Francisco Center mall, operated by Westfield before the company pulled out.Getty Images
As he walked toward the San Francisco federal building, Wynne passed more than 40 homeless men and women who were openly dealing and doing drugs Sunday afternoon on federal government property.
Many of them had open wounds and sores on their bodies – a possible side effect of mixing fentanyl with xylazine, better known as “tranq”, which is a tranquilizer commonly used on animals and known to turn users into “zombies.”
An old woman selling food and cigarettes sat a few feet from homeless men and women smoking and shooting drugs on federal property.
A sign advertising the grocery store’s closure is seen through window displays as many retailers move out of the area.Getty Images
Wynne said some seniors who receive items from local food banks often resell the food to drug addicts at a lower price than the store charges.
Less than a mile from the federal building, men gathered in front of a vacant building at 1128 Market St., where they sold items stolen from local stores, including shampoo, chewing gum and clothes.
Meanwhile, Walgreens and other similar stores in the area have locked down most items in their stores — including chocolate bars, laundry soap and baby formula — because of an increase in shoplifting.
Empty shelves inside the once-popular Nordstrom store days before its official closing.Getty Images
A local store security guard told The Post at least five thefts occur where he works every day. Most of the thieves ended up selling the items near the vacant building at 1128 Market St., he said.
“I can’t use any force, so there’s nothing I can do,” said the guard, who did not want to be named. “In my eight-hour shift, we catch at least 15 people breaking in and stealing, and it’s worse on weekends.
“We can’t stop them, but what we can do is try to reduce the damage they do. The police came when we called them, they took the explanation for 10 minutes, and then they left,” he said. “Nothing helps. This is the reality of living and working here.”
During the year ending in May, emergency dispatchers received reports of hundreds of possible crimes in Central San Francisco — including 118 petty thefts, 64 fights, 41 grand thefts and 24 thefts.
A station blocks the part of Nordstrom’s flagship store where fixtures are stored.Getty Images
The mall is owned by Westfield, but the company has also pulled out of the city centre, citing a significant drop in sales and a lack of foot traffic. The mall remains open with other stores like H&M and Bloomingdales, but the loss of another major store like Nordstrom is another blow to the struggling downtown business corridor.
Sales tax revenue for the South of Market, or SoMa, neighborhood where the mall is located has also seen a 25 percent drop from the first quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2023.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said he is now working to change laws and reform taxes to bring in more businesses.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has talked about turning the mall into a soccer stadium. David G. McIntyre for the NY Post
After Nordstrom’s closing announcement in May, Breed held a press conference announcing increased funding for revitalization in the area.
Earlier this month, he also announced that the city was studying the idea of turning the Westfield-run mall into a soccer stadium.
“We know we have to fight issues around crime and public safety and affordability and transportation,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “But I’m optimistic about the future, because what we’re seeing in San Francisco is something unlike anything we’ve seen before.
“We have the possibility to be whatever we want to be.”
But rampant crime isn’t just limited to San Francisco, as police in Los Angeles have also reported several months of violent robberies and robberies.
Recently, dozens of hooded and masked shoplifters descended on another Nordstrom store in Topanga.
Police on Sunday patrolled outside a San Francisco mall where its flagship Nordstrom store closed its doors for the last time.Getty Images
Shocking surveillance video shows the robber attacking a security guard with bear spray before running out of the store with luxury goods.
“Certainly, what happened at our Topanga store is troubling to all of us,” Nordstrom said. “The safety of employees and customers is always a priority. But loss is a concern.”
The company reported its “highest in history” losses from shoplifting during last week’s earnings call — echoing complaints made recently by other major retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty and Target.
Nordstrom spans five floors of the mall and was once its main attraction.Getty Images
“I would say we find it unacceptable, and [it] needs to be addressed,” an executive told investors after the retailer reported an 8.3% sales decline in the second quarter ended July 29.
“While it is unacceptable, it is in our plans,” the Nordstrom executive added. “We don’t see a continued increase in shrinkage that has exceeded what we had planned.”
Nordstrom chief financial officer Catherine Smith added, “We continue to see a cautious consumer,” noting that sales slowed at both its eponymous stores and the off-price Nordstrom Rack banner in the third quarter.
The company warned that delinquency could increase gradually.
“[Delinquencies] are now above pre-pandemic levels, which could result in higher credit losses in the second half and into 2024,” Smith said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
