A week ago, Chicago Alderman William Hall told the media that he wanted drugstore giant Walgreens to face criminal charges for closing a store in his city. Hall called the closure "first-degree corporate abandonment," and said the closure should be "a crime the way they treating our elders ... the way they treating our families."
The store cited crime and rampant shoplifting as reasons for the closure, and now we have a figure for just how much money Alderman Hall and his fellow Chicago Democrats allowed criminals to take from Walgreens last year alone: $1 million.
On top of that, the store was spending $400,000 on security and employees were still being attacked and items being stoeln.
UPDATE: Walgreens lost $1 million on this 1 store last year due to the theft ($400k on security) https://t.co/SgmeFWZfC6
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 10, 2026
Earlier this week, Walgreens announced the closing of the store, which has served the Chatham community for more than 20 years, creating what many residents call a "prescription desert" and a continued disinvestment in the Black community.
On Saturday, the Walgreens executives revealed the store lost more than a million dollars last year, partly due to declining prescription sales but also a massive amount of store theft.
"Theft at this store is 16%," Johnson said. "That's four times above the company average."
And the company explained that they tried to stop theft.
"Lock boxes help us protect the merchandise in the store. A lot of the time, those lock boxes were getting destroyed. And that's at a great cost to the company," said Jason Vasquez, Walgreens District Manager.
They say Walgreens was spending $400,000 a year on security guards in the store, but there were still attacks on store employees.
"We've had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes ... That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out," said Lonnie Fuqua, the store's manager.
According to Democrats, stores need to lose $1.5 million a year (or more) because they refuse to prosecute theft and put criminals behind bars. On top of that, store employees need to risk their lives and safety so thieves can harass, abuse, threaten, and physically assault them in the commission of crimes.
Democrats: the party of the working man!
The same people that are adamantly against prosecuting thieves want to prosecute the people they're stealing from for saying, "No more." It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in an Ayn Rand novel.
— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) May 10, 2026
It truly is.
To break this down,
— Just Posting Ls (@MomsPostingLs) May 10, 2026
Income- typical net operating income is about 400k for a high performing store, so store was losing 600k/yr
Total sales- The average store sells about 8.5m of products per year. 75% pharmacy, 25% merchandise. Assuming 2.1m merch, 29% of products were stolen.
That is unsustainable.
“If you don’t stay and let us keep robbing you we will sue”…. This is the status of left wing logic driven by hysteria and irrationality
— defundthemob (@defundthemob1) May 10, 2026
They're tyrants.
To hear this gentleman say that, "It should be a crime for Walgreens to do this" is indeed rich.
— Jon Najarian (@jonnajarian) May 10, 2026
If there was someone enforcing the crimes being committed, Walgreens probably wouldn't be leaving. But a million in loss & security just makes the enterprise unprofitable. https://t.co/s2zufuOB46
Democrats literally believe stores should just eat those losses. Then again, no Democrat could successfully run a lemonade stand, let alone a business like Walgreens.
This is what happens when cities treat theft like a minor inconvenience instead of a crime. https://t.co/WatSqDempc
— Andrew Alvarez (@theOGalv) May 10, 2026
These are the inevitable consequences.
Will people in the neighborhood suffer? Possibly. But that's on the Democrats who refuse to address crime, and on the voters who keep electing Democrats who refuse to address crime.