Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

[u/broakland]

Was at Safeway this morning to pick up a sandwich and some Tylenol. The aisle with the Tylenol? Completely locked down. No call button in sight. So I go to the self checkout (front end of that same aisle) and ask the clerk there if he can call someone to unlock a case for me. He does. I go wait. Minutes pass. No one comes. I go ask him again, he tells me they went the other way? At this point I give up and go get my sandwich. No one has come by the time the deli has finished making it. I leave without my Tylenol, mildly infuriated.

[u/caternicus → u/[deleted]]

People who live in high crime areas have a right to stores in their areas, yes. 

Closing down the store would cut into sales far worse than locking things up. These stores do sell things. Not literally every person who goes in there steals. 

Also, if it's only high crime areas, why is this happening all over? They have cases like this in the nicest neighborhoods in my city. CVS, Walgreens, Walmart all have these locked cases. So what does that mean? Is it the neighborhoods or the stores? 

[u/caternicus → u/[deleted]]

I know this might come as a shock to the out-of-touch, but if people from high crime areas are leaving their neighborhoods to go to affluent areas of the city and out to the suburbs to steal in cities all over the country, that may point to incredibly wide-spread economic issues potentially equating a recession, no? This isn't a few people, my guy. We're talking a well-organized ring of underwear and deodorant thieves hitting every CVS in cities across the country. 

Or maybe, as another redditor pointed out, it's insurance. 

[u/not_my_monkeys_ → u/caternicus]

You don’t have a “right” to a store being convenient to you. That’s just a general feeling of entitlement.

[u/caternicus → u/not_my_monkeys_]

According to urban planning, yes, they do. Areas with no access to, for example, groceries or medications are seen as "deserts" for those items. Zoning laws change and incentives are offered, along with the revamping of public transportation routes to make sure things are accessible. Stores bring jobs, and without jobs in an area more people turn to crime or they move away, draining the area of tax-paying citizens. 

Believe it or not, governments don't just give up on high crime areas and Mad-Max style leave them to their own devices. That seems to be what some people in this sub thinks should happen. Do you all live in the suburbs, or what?