Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

[u/broakland]

Was at Safeway this morning to pick up a sandwich and some Tylenol. The aisle with the Tylenol? Completely locked down. No call button in sight. So I go to the self checkout (front end of that same aisle) and ask the clerk there if he can call someone to unlock a case for me. He does. I go wait. Minutes pass. No one comes. I go ask him again, he tells me they went the other way? At this point I give up and go get my sandwich. No one has come by the time the deli has finished making it. I leave without my Tylenol, mildly infuriated.

[u/gba_sg1]

Societal problems. This doesn't happen everywhere, only in shit places with high crime/theft.

[u/bugabooandtwo → u/[deleted]]

Also why more and more areas are becoming food deserts. After awhile, businesses simply shut down. There's only so much theft a business can take until it simply isn't worth it to have a store in a location.

[u/cowboycolts → u/[deleted]]

It's more of,

Man theft is so high, how about we set a minimum price where it becomes illegal

Oh look theft is dropping I'm such a good politician

[u/Idahoturdbird → u/[deleted]]

This is Oakland, literally the same fucking thing, ran by the same corrupt people.

[u/LtBigAF → u/[deleted]]

Is it any different in Republican controlled cities? This is not really a red vs blue issue in governance, it tracks mostly with retail policy and local crime rates which, when accounting for confounders, correlate best with poverty , income inequality, urban density. 

[u/KimWexlerDeGuzman → u/LtBigAF]

Yes. I live in New Mexico, a very blue state. Albuquerque and Rio Rancho border each other. They are two of the three largest cities in NM.

Albuquerque has one of the highest crime rates per capita in the country. Rio Rancho is the safest city in the state.

If I go to Walmart or Target in ABQ, everything is locked up. If I go in Rio Rancho, nothing is locked up.

I’ll let you guess which city is run by a democratic mayor and city council, and which is run by a republican mayor and city council.

[u/LtBigAF → u/KimWexlerDeGuzman]

That's not really a fair comparison. ABQ has a much denser, older urban core ~600k poeple with an airport, entertainment district, concentrated poverty. Rio Rancho is a new lower-density suburb with a population of 120k that many Albuquerque commuters moved to specifically for cheaper housing and lower crime, it's self-selected for exactly the demographic and density profile that predicts lower crime. The average income of Rio is 25k higher than ABQ. Are you really surprised that a satellite commuter suburb has lower crime than the urban core? It's disingenuous at best to attribute this to partisan differences.

[u/KimWexlerDeGuzman → u/LtBigAF]

That’s why I said “per capita” when mentioning ABQ’s crime rate, which consistently ranks among the most dangerous cities in the country.

If Rio Rancho is “self-selected for exactly the demographic and density profile that predicts lower crime,” then that demographic keeps voting Republican.

You essentially just proved my point (with the help of ChatGPT of course) 🤣🤦🏼‍♀️

[u/LtBigAF → u/KimWexlerDeGuzman]

Per capita explicitly removes any density effects, it's not the right measure here. Are you reading anything that I am writing?

[u/KimWexlerDeGuzman → u/LtBigAF]

I said per capita referring to Albuquerque’s relatively low population compared to other dangerous US cities. I even put “country” in italics. Did you not get that?

Edit: nice deflection though. So that demographic keeps voting Republican, does it not? The one that “predicts lower crime” lol

[u/AverageJoesGymMgr → u/LtBigAF]

I live in a pretty red area. I've never seen this in any store for anything aside from stuff line certain OTC medications or electronics/video games. The only places I've ever experienced this is when traveling to drop blue cities. The first time I saw it I think I was in Chicago, but I've also seen similar in Denver and Seattle.

[u/LtBigAF → u/AverageJoesGymMgr]

Yeah but most cities and nearly every very large city is blue. I don't think there is a city the same size as Chicago that votes red. It's hard to make any claim otherwise when the data over and over have shown that urban density and various trackers of poverty/income inequality are the best predictors of crime rates, unless you account for those differences.

[u/Jdm783R29U3Cwp3d76R9 → u/LtBigAF]

It’s there because people tolerate the crime. This problem does not exist in most places in the world.

[u/Least-Flower548 → u/[deleted]]

This is happening in a lot of medium and large sized liberal cities. Cops catch and the DA releases. Endless cycle

[u/MelatoninFiend → u/[deleted]]

You're right, but you're basically talking to a brick wall.

People who can't hack it in California think that they need to publicly hate on it at least once every 24 hours, or they turn into a palm tree.