Chicago has a problem with retailers closing their doors, pulling up stakes, and getting the hell out of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods.
Without warning last week, a KFC franchisee “abruptly” shuttered three South Side locations. One outlet, located in Chatham, had been “undergoing renovations for months” when the franchise owner apparently just gave up and boarded up the windows instead. According to the same Fox 32 Chicago report, the Great KFC Vanishing came “less than one month after Cinema Chatham, a local movie theater, shut down.” That closure also came without warning.
Sixth Ward Alderman William Hall said, “A closed business is not only a sore eye, but it’s a gateway for violence because when you see abandonment, it looks as if there is no love, no hope in the community.”
“There was no communication,” he added. “I saw what the residents saw, disappointed just the same way they are.”
A commenter on the Fox 32 story wrote, “What’s killing business on the south side of Chicago is no one feels safe anymore. I frequented both the 35th and 75th Street locations, and the food was great. But I’d never go after dark. There’s a whole different feel to those streets when the sun goes down.”
I was about to write how sad it is when a well-run restaurant can’t survive the lawlessness prevalent in parts of the city, but it’s worse than sad, isn’t it?
Some folks, like Twitter/X user Jay here, had fun with the bad news. “I went to that same KFC,” he posted. “When I got my order I walked out and I was chased by these two guys with red hats and they were yelling ‘This is MAGA country’ in a Jamaican accent… no wonder why it’s shut down.”
Aside from the crime problem plaguing mostly the city’s poorer neighborhoods, “inflation, rising labor costs, and changing consumer habits” forced so many local businesses to shutter that Axios devoted a lengthy year-end roundup to it.
It wasn’t racism that forced longtime local favorites like Seven Treasures, Metropolitan Brewing, or Vesecky’s bakery to close (after 118 years!) — it was economic reality. Inflation and higher interest rates are national problems and nothing unique to Chicago. But the closures of national chain outlets like CVS, Walmart, and now KFC are because of a different kind of economic reality.
Unlike inflation and higher interest rates, this economic reality is self-inflicted.
This is where I should remind you that these neighborhoods didn’t used to be so dangerous — so what changed? Why was KFC happy to operate on the South Side for years but now feels the need to shutter three popular locations?
We know exactly what happened. In the Summer of Love following the martyrdom of St. George of Minneapolis, Chicago’s political leaders embraced the same crime-friendly policies as the political leaders of so many other Democrat-run cities. When given a chance to change course in the 2023 mayoral election, Chicago voters chose more of the same.
They could have gone with Paul Vallas, who ran Chicago Public Schools for six years, is a reliable Democrat, and who ran against outgoing mayor Lori Lightfoot’s lack of accountability on crime. Instead, voters chose soft-on-crime county commissioner Brandon Johnson — by a convincing 52-48.
It isn’t racism taking convenience, options, and jobs away from the parts of Chicago where they need them the most. It’s the voters, overwhelmingly in the places losing convenience, options, and jobs.
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