Usually seen in upscale neighborhoods.
You know you're in a rough part of town when even the Whole Foods has an armed guard.
This would be unthinkable in any of my local Seattle grocery stores.
But I DO remember armed guards in Baltimore grocery stores when I lived there.
And yes, the Greenmount KFC had bulletproof glass to slide your food through at the counter.
They did have a seating area at the time.
I always wondered how they cleaned the place.
It must have been on "lockdown" to get it done.
Two things:
(1) Oakland is in transition from being a rough ghetto town to a bohemian/yuppie town.
Just as Brooklyn experienced an invasion of young white and Asian artists and developers when Manhattan rents got too high for entry level New Yorkers, Oakland is now Brooklyn for entry level San Franciscans.
So Whole Foods wants to get established in the area before it goes all white, to get a headstart.
(2) Zoe Marks' Twitter feed shows - in pictures and in words - what a self-righteous, self-important SJW she is. She couldn't be happier than if she hit the lottery.
Years ago I was in a Barnes & Noble in some slum in one of the outer boroughs in NYC; I was shocked to see an armed guard there (after overcoming the shock that there was a Barnes & Noble there). Newark had its first TD Bank branch open a few years back, and didn’t want to appear unwelcoming so they wouldn’t use the zoo barricades to protect the tellers. It was robbed in short order...
The Whole Foods where I shop occasionally has had a guard for a few years, yet this particular city in Ventura County, Calif. is not a ‘rough neighborhood.’
Don’t know if the guard is armed or not.
Will look closer the next time to see if he is armed, and I think I will simply ask him why he’s there.
There’s a Norwegian cheese I can buy only at Whole Foods, and I purchase additional items at the same time.
On the ‘other side of me,’ in another city - which is absoLUTEly NOT in a rough neighborhood - I believe Whole Foods has a guard there.
Perhaps the high visibility of a guard (at any store, or mall) prevents shop-lifting - - - ?