Shoplifting reports at a South Side Walgreens closing next month skyrocketed 187% last year, reaching the highest level in at least two decades, according to city data that appears to support the company’s claim that rampant theft made the store financially unsustainable.
The spike comes as some city leaders criticize Walgreens for its decision to close the store at 8628 South Cottage Grove Avenue, even as the company says it spends $400,000 annually on security in a failed effort to deter theft.
Because not all shoplifting is reported to the police, the actual number of incidents is probably even higher. And while city crime data does not identify exact street addresses, CWB Chicago isolated incidents most likely linked to the store by analyzing GPS coordinates and other location data in city records.
At a town hall meeting on Saturday, Walgreens executives told concerned residents that closing the store on June 4 after more than two decades in the neighborhood will be the last resort after other efforts to save the store failed.
Company representatives said the location lost more than $1 million by 2025 due to escalating theft and, in part, declining prescription sales. An executive told residents the store loses 16% of its stock to theft, four times the company average.
Walgreens also hired security guards at a cost of $400,000 a year and locked up most of the stolen goods, but executives said those measures failed to stem the losses.
“These key boxes were often destroyed. And that was to the detriment of the company,” district manager Jason Vasquez told residents.
Executives also said employees faced repeated threats and violence despite the presence of security.
“We’ve had people jumping over the counters because we sell liquor behind the counter and carry liquor and cigarettes,” store manager Lonnie Fuqua said. “Not so much the financial piece, but the endurance of that day in and day out.”
Yet Ald. William Hall, whose 6th Ward includes the store, blamed Walgreens rather than the thieves for causing the losses.
“Walgreens should be sued for abandoning businesses in the first place,” Hall said last week, according to ABC7. “It should be a crime the way they treat our elderly. It should be a crime the way they treat our families.”
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