Posted on 05/16/2026 11:02:33 AM PDT by Morgana
Walgreens has announced that it is closing a store in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago. They claim that the store is losing upwards of a million dollars a year to theft, so the reason for the closure is no mystery. They say that this particular store loses more in theft than any other store.
And yet… The political leaders in Chicago, who allow thieves to run wild, are angry at Walgreens.
They caused this, with their soft on crime policies, yet they are mad at Walgreens for closing the location.
FOX 32 in Chicago reported:
Walgreens to close Chatham store after more than $1M loss, cites theft and declining sales
Walgreens executives revealed the store lost more than a million dollars last year, partly due to declining prescription sales but also a massive amount of store theft.
“Theft at this store is 16 percent,” Johnson said. “That’s four times above the company average.”
And the company explained that they tried to stop theft.
“Lock boxes help us protect the merchandise in the store. A lot of the time, those lock boxes were getting destroyed. And that’s at a great cost to the company,” said Jason Vasquez, Walgreens District Manager.
They say Walgreens was spending $400,000 a year on security guards in the store, but there were still attacks on store employees.
“We’ve had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes… That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out,” said Lonnie Fuqua, the store’s manager.
Guy Benson of the Washington Examiner reports on the local outrage:
Walgreens is shuttering a location in Chicago, upsetting residents, and stirring fury among exploitative and complicit politicians. The way some local “leaders” tell it, the drugstore chain is acting greedily, selfishly, or even criminally.
“Walgreens should be charged with first-degree corporate abandonment,” thundered a local alderman. “It should be a crime, the way they’re treating our elders. It should be a crime, the way they’re treating our families.”…
A 16% theft rate with frequent physical attacks on employees, all despite a $400,000-per-year security expenditure, led to bleeding red ink. It was obviously unsustainable. But in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Chicago, the “problem” is Walgreens declining to forge ahead with this dangerous madness indefinitely. Politicians ask, “What about the resulting ‘prescription desert’ for community members?
Perhaps they should worry first and foremost about maintaining the rule of law in said community.
Here’s the problem for these leftist leaders in Chicago. You can’t protest reality.
The store is closing because of you. Walgreens is not the problem. You are.
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Now they wonder why it's closing.
Maybe.
Or, more likely, this is Walgreen’s following Rahm Emanuel.
And
DEERFIELD, IL — February 23, 2026 — In a move that underscores the continued volatility of the American retail pharmacy landscape, the newly private Walgreens Boots Alliance has announced a significant expansion of its workforce reductions and a finalized timeline for its massive store closure initiative. Under the leadership of the private equity firm Sycamore Partners, which completed a landmark $10 billion acquisition of the company in August 2025, Walgreens is slashing hundreds of additional corporate roles and shuttering a major distribution hub as it battles the systemic pressures that have already claimed several of its former peers.
The immediate fallout includes the elimination of 628 positions, primarily centered at the company’s historic Deerfield headquarters and a logistics center in Houston, Texas. This latest round of cuts serves as a stark reminder that the “Big Three” era of retail pharmacy is effectively over. With Rite Aid having finished its total liquidation in late 2025 and CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) aggressively pivoting toward insurance and primary care, the once-ubiquitous neighborhood drugstore is being redesigned into a leaner, digital-first entity that prioritizes margin over geographic footprint.
Local Political Leaders Who Enable the Crime Are Outraged
Democrat democracy in action
OH NOES! A drug store desert. Cue chicongo gal moochee and bayrack obamski to whine. 😵
Doesn't seem to be the elderly or the families who are vaulting the counters to get at the liquor, does it? This complaint has all the credibility of a guy who shoots his toes off and then demands welfare because he's disabled.
What about my reparations?
Exactly, this is what happens when you don’t prosecute criminals and set them free to commit more crimes instead.
A friend of mine manages a pharmacy in a “nice” suburban neighborhood. He tells me that he catches at least one shoplifter a day. And he can only guess how many he misses.
I suppose these stores will eventually have to adopt the old Service Merchandise model. You pay for what you want. Then an employee gets it from the back.
Or maybe they’ll just close.
🙁
Those Chicago “local political leaders” should reach into their own pockets and pay for the Walgreens theft with the grift they’ve gotten if they don’t want Walgreens to leave.
I work in a place like this— it is a food desert. Absolutely no stores or businesses, and no place to eat. Not even a convenience store because they would be robbed blind. It sucks. I have to drive for miles to get a drink or a snack while I’m working.
For some reason, the Father’s Day cards were not looted.
“You can’t protest reality.”
Reality is a harsh mistress.
Is there even one republican or (filllintheblank) non-democrat who is siding with those protesting the closure?
> Not even a convenience store because they would be robbed blind. <
Maybe five miles from me there is a large public housing project. I pass by it maybe once a month.
Somebody opened a convenience store right across the street from it. That’s good for the community, right?
It looked like a regular convenience store at first.
Then they took orders from a store window only.
Then that window had security bars on it.
Then the store closed.
I wonder what happened (not really).
🤔
Location of closing Walmart on top of 2026 homicide map of Chicago
When the Dem politicians accidentally phrase it “And now our community here will have no place to get drugs” they’ll have to pause for a 2 minute laugh period.
(Walgreens Closing Chicago Location Due to Massive Theft,
Local Political Leaders Who Enable the Crime Are Outraged)
People haz a Right to Steal!!
C’mon man!!
/Democrat Logic
Chatham, Chicago has a population of 9,958 residents, with a racial composition of 91.6% African American and 1.2% Caucasian.
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