A small business owner in Portland, Oregon, was forced to permanently close her shop after a string of break-ins left the clothing store no longer financially sustainable.
Marcy Landolfo, the owner of Rains PDX, wrote in a note posted to the front of the store that she hasn’t received any financial reimbursement since the third robbery, explaining that due to the “constant … criminal behavior, coupled with escalating safety issues for our employees,” she has decided to permanently close.
“Our city is in peril,” the owner’s note plastered on Rains PDX’s front door reads, a KATU reporter shared on Twitter. “Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city’s current state.”
“We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished,” it continues. “Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins … we have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd.”
The owner at Rains tells me after five break-ins in about three weeks, she made the sudden decision to permanently close. Staff here are putting pressure on the city to look after small businesses dealing with ongoing challenges with crime. pic.twitter.com/XyP2p6PR6W
— Megan Allison (@mallisonKATU) November 26, 2022
Landolfo told the Portland-based news station that her store was burglarized 15 times over the last year and a half, including five times over just a three-week period. She explained that it’s simply impossible to survive such financial burdens.
“The problem is, as small businesses, we cannot sustain those types of losses and stay in business,” Landolfo said. “I won’t even go into the numbers of how much has been out of pocket.”
“The products that are being targeted are the very expensive winter products and I just felt like the minute I get those in the store they’re going to get stolen,” she continued.
When Rains PDX suffered a break-in last month, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, said officials are working on a plan to provide financial aid to report shops damaged through criminal activity. However, Landolfo told KATU that that was not enough.
“Paying for glass that’s great, but that is so surface and does nothing for the root cause of the problem, so it’s never going to change,” she said.
A spokesperson for Wheeler’s office told Fox News that the mayor and his team are working to “increase funding for Business Repair Grants through Prosper Portland,” explaining that officials understand “local businesses often must make a choice whether to pay out of pocket or file a claim with their insurance after a break-in.”
“[We’ve] recently held a Retail Safety Summit to strategize with local business leaders and loss prevention specialists on the retail theft crisis,” the spokesperson told the network in a statement. “We are also working with interested property owners to streamline the permitting process to add enhanced lighting to storefronts, which can help deter nighttime break-ins.”
Portland Struggling With Crime Surge
Rains PDX is the latest store to close in Portland over rampant crime and employee-safety concerns.
Last summer, Starbucks also closed several stores in the Portland metropolitan area. At the time, the Seattle-based coffeehouse giant announced that a total of 16 stores nationwide would close, and all of the closures were based on a rise in crime-related complaints. Other cities that shut down stores included Seattle, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.
Besides an increase in thefts and vandalism, which saw mass protests over the death of George Floyd in 2020, violent crime in Portland has also surged over the past three years, according to data compiled by researchers for the California Partnership for Safe Communities.
Researchers examined homicides from shootings in the city from January 2019 to June 2021, and non-fatal shootings from January 2019 to December 2021.
The report (pdf) found that there was a 144 percent increase in counts of homicides from January 2019 to June 2021, while non-fatal shooting counts increased by 241 percent from January 2019 to December 2021.
Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.