Reporter catches thefts mid-segment at most-robbed Walgreens in US

July 25, 2023

The most-robbed Walgreens in the nation saw its latest thefts captured on camera — in the middle of a journalist’s televised report on the rampant crime at the San Francisco store.

CNN Senior National Correspondent Kyung Lah was at the store on Monday night to report on the store’s latest anti-theft tactic — chaining the doors to its freezers shut — when she spotted a shoplifter walking out with merchandise in his hands.

“Did that guy pay? Did that guy pay?” Lah asks a cashier behind the counter.

The employee simply answers, “He didn’t pay.”

Lah said she witnessed two other robberies in 30 minutes while conducting her story, noting that of the nearly 9,000 Walgreens in the US, the one in San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood was the one with the “highest theft rate.”

In the story, Lah said that the store sees more than a dozen thefts a day, and it had recently seen thieves cleaning out its frozen goods section.

A man with stolen goods walks past CNN reporter Kyung Lah in a story aired Monday night.

A cashier confirms that the man left the store without paying for the merchandise in his hands.

It got to the point where “workers grew so frustrated they resorted to the chains,” Lah said, referencing the latest anti-theft system.

The reporter, however, noted that the employees were told to put the chains away “because of the negative messaging.”

Local resident Richie Greenberg, who toured the store with Lah, said he had never seen anything like what he witnessed at the Walgreens, saying the situation is emblematic of the crisis facing the city.

The store has seen such an uptick in crime that it even had to chain up its frozen foods section.

Management, however, ordered the locks and chains be removed because of the bad optics, workers said.

“This was bizarre, something I’d never seen before,” Greenberg said. “This is just more icing on the cake. Telling us that rampant crime has become a regular part of life.”

The National Retail Federation’s 2022 retail security survey ranked the San Francisco Bay Area as the second hardest hit metropolitan area by theft in the previous two years.

Walgreens has notably shut down five stores in the area due to theft since the retail crime epidemic began.

The Walgreens in the Richmond neighborhood is the most robbed in the nation.

Along with the Walgreens in the Richmond neighborhood, a Target in the downtown area sees more than 10 thefts a day, leaving the store little choice but to lock up most of its products.

Other chains such as Whole Foods, Nordstrom, CVS and Amazon have either left downtown San Francisco altogether or announced their intention to do so.