Another pharmacy is leaving Chicago because of theft, and somehow, the villain of the story is not the people stealing from it.
The villain is apparently the business itself, which finally decided it had enough and decided to cut its losses.
According to a report from the Chicago Sun-Times, a Walgreens located at 8628 S. Cottage Grove Ave. in the crime-ridden area is set to close permanently on June 4.
Democratic Alderman William Hall joined residents outside the store Monday, where signs read “Senior Lives Matter” and “End Corporate Abandonment.”
“Walgreens should be charged with first-degree corporate abandonment,” Hall said. “It should be a crime the way they’re treating our elders. It should be a crime the way they’re treating our families.”
CHICAGO: Retail stores across the city struggling with teen takeovers, illegal aliens, and rampant shoplifting are closing left and right. Alderman William Hall wants to see retailers like Walgreens to face criminal charges for closing. pic.twitter.com/G6KNDYEjql
— @amuse (@amuse) May 4, 2026
The anger was loud and pointed entirely at the wrong target.
Walgreens made its reasoning clear. The company said the store has experienced “significantly higher levels of theft and violent incidents than our other locations,” adding that ongoing safety issues have made it difficult to protect workers and customers.
The same Chicago Sun-Times report noted that at least seven Walgreens stores on the South Side have closed or are set to close since 2025.
This obviously was not a one-off decision. Walgreens has also said it is closing other high-risk locations. Translated into plain English, theft, violence, and shrinking margins make basic operations unsustainable.
Yet somehow, the solution being floated is to charge the business for leaving instead of charging the criminals who made staying in business no longer worth it.
Imagine the kind of environment that produces that logic and then pretends it’s moral clarity.
If Walgreens really did what these activists seem to want, the store would have to look like a bunker, with locked doors and every item handed through a secure window — and only after payment clears.
And the same people demanding the store stay open would be the first to call that setup oppressive or discriminatory.
How dare a company refuse to be robbed daily and still be expected to operate as if nothing is wrong with the neighborhood? How dare it expect to turn a profit instead of functioning as a public utility for people who are either destroying the store or robbing it blind?
There is a deeper absurdity here that no amount of chanting can hide: There is very little inside a Walgreens that cannot be ordered online and delivered within a day or two, which means the physical store only exists if it can operate safely.
When it can’t, it disappears, and no amount of racism accusations can change that.
What is being demanded now amounts to forcing a business to remain in place so it can continue being exploited by the same conditions that made it unworkable.
It’s like telling a battered woman to stay in the relationship because leaving would inconvenience her abuser.
If Chicago leaders want stores like Walgreens to stay, they might start by addressing the theft and violence driving them out.
Until that happens, blaming the company is just more evidence of how detached Democrats have become from reality.
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