Walgreens is pulling out of Chicago’s South Side, home to some of the city’s most crime-ridden areas. The closure of a store in the city’s Chatham neighborhood, set for June 4, marks the seventh Walgreens location to shut down on the South Side in the past year.
Who’s to blame for this departure? Chicago Alderman William Hall, who represents Chatham as part of Ward 6, blames the company. Walgreens, he said, should be charged with “first-degree corporate abandonment” for creating a “medicine drought,” and he even accused it of committing a “pharmaceutical genocide.” (It’s particularly rich that Hall is now castigating Walgreens for closing, given that he hadn’t been happy about Walgreens opening, alleging it “ran out” small, local businesses.)
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Hall is right to be concerned that residents and seniors with chronic health conditions may suffer. But criminals, not corporations, are to blame for the closures. Strengthening both policing and prosecution of property crimes is the key to bringing Walgreens and other businesses back to the South Side. Rhetoric like Hall’s, by contrast, continues to send the message that Chicago is closed for business.
Walgreens has been clear that crime is the problem. At a town hall on May 9, executives revealed that the Chatham store lost more than $1 million last year due to shoplifting and declining prescription sales. The location loses 16 percent of its inventory to theft—four times the company average, according to Walgreens’ regional vice president.
Like many stores reeling from the national surge of retail theft, the Chatham Walgreens was forced to install lock boxes to protect merchandise. And it spent more than $400,000 a year on security guards. Yet criminals were undeterred. Thieves broke the locks, leaped over counters to steal liquor and cigarettes, and assaulted workers.
It may be expedient for Hall to blame a Fortune 500 company for his ward’s woes, but it certainly doesn’t benefit his constituents in Chatham. They will now lose another business vital to their well-being because of the city’s failure to address rampant property crime.
In fact, even in its difficult circumstances, Walgreens is doing far more to serve vulnerable residents than is Chatham’s own alderman. The company is reaching out to local customers to explain how they can receive their prescriptions by mail and offering free delivery for seniors. It has made its Chatham employees eligible to transfer to other stores, where, one hopes, they won’t have to fear as much for their safety.
Meantime, Alderman Hall did not even bother to show up for this month’s town hall, according to residents. Amid backlash over the Walgreens closure, Ward 15 Alderman Raymond Lopez asked a common-sense question: “Where was that anger when the stores in our communities were under years and years of assault by criminals allowed to shoplift, vandalize, and destroy neighborhood institutions?”
Lopez has it right. Crime is what’s closing stores in Chicago. It was the main reason that Aldi abruptly closed its Auburn Gresham neighborhood store in 2022, and it’s helped drive the departure from the city of other major businesses like Citadel. Though citywide crime—including robbery—declined last year in line with national trends, there’s still much work to be done, particularly on the South Side.
Instead of condemning a corporation for a tough but logical business decision, Hall should join forces with Lopez in demanding stricter policing and an end to coddling offenders. Only then might Walgreens consider returning.