Large US Cities have been plagued by a host of problems I’ve repeatedly proven can be solved if residents stop voting for Democrats. Crime, homelessness, systemic mismanagement, and, lately, a rise in business closures and departures are all directly connected to government policy decisions.
That’s what’s so amusing about this great idea from San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Dean Preston. Grocery stores shuttered without any notice is unfair to the locals, and he’d like a law that requires them to provide at least six months notice. There are a host of loopholes but that’s not the funniest bit. This is.
The bill would also require that grocery stores “meet and work in good faith with neighborhood residents” and the OEWD to find a workable solution to keep groceries available at the location. Those solutions could include identifying strategies and resources to allow the store to remain open, helping residents organize and open a cooperative and identifying another grocery store operator to take over and continue grocery sales at the location.
Strategies like, oh, I don’t know, arresting and prosecuting shoplifters?
San Francisco, to its credit, ousted a previous DA from the Soros Chaos Coaching tree, but not much has improved. With drugs, homelessness, and the infamous poop map, it is a city in rapid decline. Third-world diseases long eradicated from American shores have returned thanks to its long-running status as a sanctuary city that invited them back).
Getting rid of cash bail and ignoring crime was as much a progressive lurch to the left as it was a capacity problem. Like many post-BLM summer cities, San Francisco made sure the same cops they’d been in charge of for decades knew they did not have their back. With the justice system and the city against them, hiring and retention became difficult by design.
In other words, this is San Francisco’s fault, and the solutions are to reverse policy or – since that seems unlikely – replace “leadership (even less likely).
Yes, San Francisco is screwed whether the meddling grocery store idea finds its legs or not. Business owners will hire lawyers to get them through the loopholes to avoid prosecution because “Under the legislation, any person affected by a grocery store’s failure to comply with the requirements could initiate legal proceedings for damages, injunctive relief, declaratory relief, or a writ of mandate to remedy the violation. ”
They will secure an exit strategy that does not require them to help find some sucker to replace them, not that anyone, knowing the risks the rules create, would open a business there. The solution is just as much a reason not to do business on the Streets of San Franciso. This leaves the people the City has screwed with declining options, much like the departure of other stores from CVS and Walgreens to Wal-Mart, Amazon, and others.
The people the City said it was helping suffer, so I have to wonder if San Fran will propose an idea similar to the one by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson—socialized grocery stores. Policy drove them out, and policy kept them away, so why not just take over?
All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options. We know access to grocery stores is already a challenge for many residents, especially on the South and West sides. A better, stronger, safer future is one where our youth and our communities have access to the tools and resources they need to thrive. My administration is committed to advancing innovative, whole-of-government approaches to address these inequities.
There is (of course) no mention of how the government created the inequities.
“The city of Chicago is reimagining the role government can play in our lives by exploring a public option for grocery stores via a municipally owned grocery store and market,” Pawar said. “Not dissimilar from the way a library or the postal service operates, a public option offers economic choice and power to communities.”
If they run it like the post office, are you warning taxpayers that they will be subsidizing the systemic losses to keep food prices within reachable range for these communities? And the more important question, will “the city-owned stores tolerate the rampant unprosecuted shoplifting that drove other businesses away?” If not, how do you stop it without arresting brown people and since it is a government facility, is there a way to label it as insurrection?