San Francisco's historic department store threatens closure due to city conditions

"You have to return to a set of norms and standards of conduct that are enforced and stop talking about it like there's some special pixie dust that exists in San Francisco. Decide you want to enforce that so that people can have a livable city. Some think it's complicated. I think it's quite straightforward," John Chachas recently wrote of the San Francisco situation.

Although he sounds like a local Republican politician, Chachas owns Gump's, a historic department store in San Francisco that recently threatened to close due to poor conditions in the city. The full-page ad was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, and its message was directed toward the Democratic management of the city and the state, embodied in London Breed and Gavin Newsom, respectively.

"I'll buy something online. I don't want to set foot in that city."

The businessman spoke openly of abandonment by the authorities, which allows the increase in crime, dirt, vandalism and the circulation of drugs. Chachas defined the current process as "erosion of this city's conditions" and threatened to close the doors of the business that opened 165 years ago.

According to him, San Francisco is suffering a "tyranny of the minority," expressed in people occupying sidewalks, selling drugs and desecrating public spaces. In addition, he quoted a comment he received from a customer in recent months: "'I love your store. I love your product. I'll buy something online. I don't want to step foot into that city."

"That's not a workable model," he said. "I'm hoping that what this galvanizes is a real conversation to change what San Francisco's doing," said Chachas, who believes city and state leaders act "like there's something humanitarian and evolved in their permission of that kind of behavior. There's nothing evolved," he added.

Chachas also spoke about the possibility of relocating his business to another state. He indicated that, in case the situation does not improve, he is evaluating other cities in California and even a couple of locations in Florida, which would lead him to move from a Democratic state to a Republican one.

"The decision on Gump's will be made based on where our historic customer base is, what community do we think is going to have the best option, and an opportunity for us to grow their policies," he continued.

Crime in San Francisco

The businessman specifically referred to crime as one of the main reasons retail businesses do not finish taking off in The City by the Bay. "Retail businesses in San Francisco and California, in general, are harmed because thieves know that shoplifting is rarely prosecuted, and even when it is, the penalties are low," he wrote.

Finally, he compared the city to Salt Lake City, Utah, where "people don't walk into stores in Salt Lake City and steal things because they know that the police will arrest them, and the district attorney will charge them, and they will be found guilty and put in prison, so people don't do it."