Portland, Ore., officials and retail executives spent months debating how to tamp down thefts and address quality-of-life issues
Target, Nike, and REI all complained about crime in Portland privately before announcing plans to close stores in the city in 2023.
The closures followed months—and in some cases years—of negotiations between company officials and the city over getting additional police patrols near their locations, improving response times and removing homeless encampments, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Ultimately the companies said the city didn’t provide enough support and they decided to shutter those locations, emails show.
The correspondence illustrates the behind-the-scenes tensions between the public and private sectors over how to address retail crime. Retailers boost the city’s economy, but limited resources hinder local leaders’ ability to satisfy the demands of each company. Oregon’s largest city has struggled with a rise in violent crimes, homelessness and a decline in its population.
Shoplifting rates in Portland were up 22% in the first half of 2023 when compared with the same period in 2019, according to a Journal analysis of city crime data. The increase in Portland’s shoplifting rate over the period was well above the average among 24 cities studied by the Council on Criminal Justice, a think tank.
Industry executives have lobbied for increased collaboration with law enforcement, saying that rising retail crime rates are hurting store safety and company profits. Companies are locking up more products to tamp down theft, and some are conducting their own investigations to identify suspects. This month, the governors of California and New York called for new legislation to combat retail crime, including measures that would add or expand criminal penalties on people who profit from theft or assault retail workers.