If a local government creates an environment where it is unprofitable and dangerous to do business, businesses find other places to do business. That is basic common sense. However, not all of our elected leaders grasp this concept.
On Tuesday, The Western Journal reported:
Another pharmacy is leaving Chicago because of theft, and somehow, the villain of the story is not the people stealing from it.
The villain is apparently the business itself, which finally decided it had enough and decided to cut its losses.
According to a report from the Chicago Sun-Times, a Walgreens located at 8628 S. Cottage Grove Ave. in the crime-ridden area is set to close permanently on June 4.
Democratic Alderman William Hall joined residents outside the store Monday, where signs read “Senior Lives Matter” and “End Corporate Abandonment.”
“Walgreens should be charged with first-degree corporate abandonment,” Hall said. “It should be a crime the way they’re treating our elders. It should be a crime the way they’re treating our families.”
What crime should the Aldermen and Mayor be charged with for creating an environment where it is unsafe to operate a drug store?
The article concludes:
How dare a company refuse to be robbed daily and still be expected to operate as if nothing is wrong with the neighborhood? How dare it expect to turn a profit instead of functioning as a public utility for people who are either destroying the store or robbing it blind?
There is a deeper absurdity here that no amount of chanting can hide: There is very little inside a Walgreens that cannot be ordered online and delivered within a day or two, which means the physical store only exists if it can operate safely.
When it can’t, it disappears, and no amount of racism accusations can change that.
What is being demanded now amounts to forcing a business to remain in place so it can continue being exploited by the same conditions that made it unworkable.
It’s like telling a battered woman to stay in the relationship because leaving would inconvenience her abuser.
If Chicago leaders want stores like Walgreens to stay, they might start by addressing the theft and violence driving them out.
Arresting criminals and holding them accountable might solve the problem.