A San Francisco store owner has slammed the Dem-led city’s officials for failing to control its out-of-control crime wave, after a gang of thieves smashed into his tobacco shop and stole $100,000 in goods and cash.
Storeowner Zaid, an immigrant from Afghanistan, said lawmakers ‘need to get a grip’ on the city, feeling it has become ‘worse than Afghanistan or Iraq’.
‘At least in Afghanistan the Taliban will cut your hand off and people are afraid to commit such a crime,’ he added to Fox News.
His remarks come as the West Coast metro continues to spiral into lawlessness, with homicides and robberies up 25 and 17 percent on last year respectively according to official crime statistics.
Shocking footage revealed how the gang of thugs ‘ransacked’ the store and made off with over $100,000 in goods and cash
Shocking footage of the attack on Zaid’s store saw a mob of thieves emerge from two vehicles on the street outside and begin smashing through his shop window.
After making their way inside, Zaid said it took the thugs just 20 minutes to ‘ransack’ his business, where they made off with around $80,000 in merchandise and $20,000 in cash in the Tuesday evening spree.
No arrests have yet been made following the incident, leading Zaid to hit out at soft-on-crime policies implemented by Democrat lawmakers.
‘They know the police won’t do anything,’ he added, claiming the officers told him they are short-staffed when he reported the incident.
‘We have a drugs issue, we have a homeless issue, and on top of this these idiots come in here and take whatever they want,’ he said.
The Afghani immigrant has lived in the United States for over three decades after emigrating to the country in 1987, but he said San Francisco is worse than he has ever seen it.
‘The city has gone downhill, especially the last 2 years since COVID, I’ve never seen it worse,’ Zaid continued.
‘People are afraid to come shopping here because they are either going to get robbed or someone will break into their car.’
Despite owning his store since 2003, Zaid said the untamed crimewave has made him question whether he should keep the business up and running.
‘We might have to shut it down,’ he said. ‘Our safety is more important than making a living in this city.’
Top officials in the city including Mayor London Breed and California Governor Gavin Newsom have come under mounting pressure to resolve the city’s crime problems, leading one furious resident to throw a brick at the mayor last week in protest.
San Francisco has been plagued by rampant homelessness, drug taking and crime in recent years
The shocking robbery comes as San Francisco continues to grapple with its untamed crimewave.
According to the SFPD’s crime statistics, there has been a staggering 25 percent increase in homicides in the city compared to 2022.
Robberies and arsons have both increased 17 and seven percent respectively, as thousands of homeless people fill the streets and drug taking continues to plague the struggling population.
Many critics of the situation point to the pandemic for the city’s decline, after the California hub’s high concentration of tech employees leaving the city in droves during lockdowns.
Many have not returned, thanks to the option of remote work and signs of urban decay on the streets, including a sharp uptick in overdose deaths for the city’s homeless.
The city saw a staggering 41 percent surge in the number of drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year, as fentanyl ravaged the city’s homeless population.
The Californian coastal hub saw 200 people die due to overdoses between January and March, compared to 142 deaths in 2022, according to recent data from the city’s medical examiner.
That amounts to one overdose death every 10 hours in a city that has seen its reputation as a coastal gem ravaged by worsening crime, drugs, and homelessness.
The West Coast metro has seen its reputation destroyed by untamed drugs, crime and homelessness
In an attempt to counteract its new reputation for crime and lawlessness, San Francisco officials recently poured $6 million into a sweeping marketing campaign to lure tourists back to the city.
The campaign, called ‘Always San Francisco’, includes the city’s first ever television commercial of a music video highlighting the metro’s quirkiness and diversity.
In 2019, the city welcomed 26.2million visitors, according to the SF Travel Association. That number bottomed out in 2020 due to the pandemic, and it has yet to return to its former glory days.
According to one analysis, San Francisco is suffering from the slowest downtown recovery of any of the 62 largest cities in the US and Canada post-pandemic.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk