- The owner of luxury San Francisco retailer Gump’s warned that this holiday season “may be our last.”
- John Chachas attributed this to rising crime, homelessness, drug use, and remote work.
- He said San Francisco is “unlivable for its residents, unsafe for our employees, and unwelcoming to visitors.”
The owner of an upmarket San Francisco retailer that first opened in 1861 has warned that rising crime and homelessness in the city means this could be its last year operating.
John Chachas, the owner and chairman of Gump’s, which sells luxury home decor and fine jewelry, among other things, said that as the company prepares for the holiday season, “we fear this may be our last because of the profound erosion of this city’s current conditions.” Gump’s is located just off Union Square in downtown San Francisco.
Chachas made his remarks in an open letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in which he criticized their leadership, published as a paid-for ad in Sunday’s edition of The San Francisco Chronicle.
“The ramifications of COVID policies advising people to abandon their offices are only beginning to be understood,” Chachas wrote.
The surge in remote working during the pandemic caused an exodus of workers from states like New York and California to Texas and Florida in search of lower taxes and living costs, a better climate, and the chance to escape the hustle and bustle in big cities. San Francisco’s population fell by 7.5% between April 2020 and July 2022 to around 808,400, per estimates from the US Census Bureau.
A lot of the migration during the pandemic was from office workers who could afford the hefty fees associated with relocating – people who could potentially be Gump’s customers.
“Equally devastating have been a litany of destructive San Francisco strategies, including allowing the homeless to occupy our sidewalks, to openly distribute and use illegal drugs, to harass the public and to defile the city’s streets,” Chachas continued in his open letter. “Such abject disregard for civilized conduct makes San Francisco unlivable for its residents, unsafe for our employees, and unwelcoming to visitors from around the world.”
Statistics from the City and County of San Francisco suggest that, though crime rates fluctuate each year and the number of reported robberies has been falling since 2017, there have been more incidents of burglary and motor vehicle theft since the pandemic started. Data from the City and County of San Francisco also shows that since 2016, police in the city have been getting slower to respond to high-priority calls, such as live gunshots, in-progress burglaries, and multi-car pile-ups.
Much of the recent criticism of San Francisco has centered around perceptions of the rise in public drug use and the number of unsheltered homeless people. Statistics from the City and County of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health suggest that the number of overdose deaths from drugs including opioids, heroin, and cocaine has risen dramatically since 2017. Between January and July 2023, 473 people died from accidental drug overdoses in the city, according to preliminary data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Some people have also said that the city is dirtier. Incidents of graffiti have risen since the start of the pandemic, with a particular surge in graffiti abatement requests in early 2023, and the city’s Public Works team has been much slower to clear it up since 2020, data shows.
A number of retailers have been closing stores in the city, including Whole Foods, Old Navy, and Amazon Go, in some cases citing staff safety or plunging sales.
Chachas urged Newsom, Breed, and the Board of Supervisors to take “immediate actions,” including cleaning the streets, removing homeless encampments, enforcing ordinances, “and returning San Francisco to its rightful place as one of America’s shining beacons of urban society.”
Newsom, Breed, and the Board of Supervisors did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, made outside of regular working hours.
Gump’s previously closed in December 2018 after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but it reopened the following year after being purchased by Chachas.
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