A retail theft epidemic sparked by soft-on-crime policies has driven stores like Walmart and Whole Foods out of Chicago. Now, the city’s radical left-wing mayor, Brandon Johnson, is taking a page out the socialism handbook and exploring the idea of government-owned grocery stores to replace the departing retail giants. According to Johnson, the goal of the city-owned groceries would be to promote “equitable” food access.
Critics say Mayor Johnson is ignoring Attorney Kim Foxx’s soft-on-crime policies as part of the conversation – policies that have drawn sharp criticism from Illinois Republican and Democrat lawmakers, and even Johnson’s predecessor, former-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Mayor Johnson joined a growing list of Democrat-run localities in exploring lawsuits against auto manufacturers, blaming them for the spike in carjackings and burglaries because their cars are apparently too easy to break into.
When Walmart announced they were departing Chicago’s South and West side neighborhoods, the store pointed to rapidly increasing losses those locations have suffered as crime in the city increased:
“The simplest explanation is that collectively our Chicago stores have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago – these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year, and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years”
Johnson’s allies on the city council, meanwhile are pushing drastic cuts to policing, surveillance, and other public safety measures as the they grapple with an over half-a-billion dollar budget gap.
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