Retail Violence Evictions Becoming More Common
Amid Rise In Shootings, Retail Landlords Look To Evict Problem Tenants
Violent crime has been on the rise in cities across the country, including Atlanta, which saw shooting incidents rise from 488 in 2019 to 711 in 2020 and 752 last year, according to the Atlanta Police Department. More than 1,800 people were shot in the city in 2020 and 2021.

Many of the shootings that have drawn the most attention have happened on commercial properties, and the commercial real estate industry has taken notice. More landlords are taking safety more seriously, boosting spending on private security, requiring more scrutiny on potential tenants and establishing curfews.

A handful have gone even further: evicting tenants based solely on repeated incidents of violence.

Landlords say they are feeling the pressure to help stem the tide of violence, not only from local residents and lawmakers, but from the economic damage these incidents can inflict on properties. For years, most of the public scrutiny around violence and illegal activity was placed on the bars and restaurant owners.

The pressure is building in the legal system as well — when repeated incidents occur at a property without action, it can open up landlords to liability, and many are getting nervous over being targeted as violence has continued to rise.

“Landlords now are getting sued. They always go for the deep pockets, which is the landlords,” Fransen said. “All of that has made landlords more aware of the issue, but also more aggressive.”

While evictions and eviction attempts stemming from violence are still rare, more and more landlords are implementing additional safety measures at their properties. Reports of violent incidents can create a perception that a property is unsafe, and that perception can hurt the overall value of the property.

“If your shopping center has a reputation … at some point that becomes a commercial decision. I mean, how do you attract a tenant if patrons are worried about getting shot there?” he said. “Landlords should do the right thing.” bisnow.com

Amazon Workers Flee Seattle Over Crime Explosion Near Downtown Office
Amazon is temporarily relocating employees from its downtown Seattle office, following a rise in violent crime

Amazon announced Friday it would temporarily move employees from its downtown Seattle office.

Amazon is temporarily relocating employees from its downtown Seattle office amid an increase in violent crime in the area.

An Amazon spokesperson told Insider via email: "Given recent incidents near 3rd and Pine, we're providing employees currently at that location with alternative office space elsewhere." The building is not closed, however. The spokesperson added: "We are hopeful that conditions will improve and that we will be able to bring employees back to this location when it is safe to do so."

The office is at 300 Pine Street, about a half-mile from its main headquarters on Seventh Avenue. As reported by KOMO News, shootings, stabbings, and other crimes are increasing in the area.

Michael del Bianco, a 15-year-old boy, was shot and killed at the intersection where Amazon's office is located on March 2, per Newsweek. About 1,800 Amazon employees are assigned to the office, according to the spokesperson, but many of them had been working remotely due to the pandemic.

According to information from the Seattle Police Department's Twitter account, there have been at least three shootings, two stabbings, and one carjacking in the area since February 21.

A spokesperson for Mayor Bruce Harrell told KOMO News in a statement: "Mayor Harrell will continue to develop a comprehensive approach to public safety in collaboration with police and safety advocates, community members, service providers, and businesses, including Amazon, to activate, revitalize, and restore downtown for all."  businessinsider.com  komonews.com

Bail Law Changes Coming Amid NY Shoplifting Spike?
More NY lawmakers back tougher bail law for repeat offenders following serial shoplifting & subway attack
Momentum is building among lawmakers to tighten up New York’s controversial bail laws after a series of high-profile cases where people are released into the streets without bail only to break the law again.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said in January that she rejected renewed calls to give judges powers to keep dangerous pre-trial suspects behind bars — something sought by Mayor Eric Adams. She said she wouldn’t “cave to pressure.”

But a source told The Post that Hochul is now eager to address the no-cash bail law as part of the state budget.

Sen. James Skoufis, a Rockland County Democrat, said in his eyes the state budget must include amending the bail law to give judges the authority to order bail for defendants with lengthy rap sheets. The budget is expected to be approved by April

“You can’t be shoplifting on Monday, get a ticket and shoplift the same store on Tuesday,” said Skoufis, chairman of the Senate Investigations Committee. He also said certain gun possession crimes that are not bailable offenses should become eligible for bail.

At least 12 Democratic senators looking to tweak the no-cash bail law despite resistance from Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, D-Yonkers, and Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris, D-Queens, a Senate insider told The Post.

The spike in crime has rattled “even progressives” who are staunch backers of the no-cash bail law.

Sources also pointed to an op-ed by former Brooklyn Assemblywoman Joe Lentol posted in the Albany Times Union on Wednesday. Lentol, who had a big hand in drafting the original no-cash bail law in 2019, wrote, “lawmakers can consider creating a ‘recalcitrant misdemeanor’ category, setting bail when individuals have multiple open misdemeanor cases.

“This approach will help stop the arrest-to-release merry-go-round that gives the perception of a breakdown in public safety,” Lentol said. nypost.com

Progressive DAs Under Fire As Crime Surges
Prosecutor races test California's patience for crime policies

Rob Bonta's reelection bid will gauge the public's commitment to criminal justice reform.

Californians are more anxious about crime than they’ve been in years, and their mood is threatening to undercut the state’s leftward swing by pushing liberal prosecutors out of office.

Left-leaning district attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles could both get ousted this year. But no liberal prosecutor’s fate is more crucial than that of state Attorney General Rob Bonta, who was considered a rising progressive star a year ago when Gov. Gavin Newsom hand-picked him to be California’s top law enforcement official.

Over the course of several election cycles, California voters have elevated progressive reformers, lightened criminal penalties and supported lawmakers who passed a host of police accountability laws — a reversal from the prevailing policies of the 1980s and 1990s, when state legislators layered on tougher laws that swelled prison populations to the point that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 ordered California to incarcerate fewer people.

Bonta stood firmly in the reformers’ camp during his time in the state Legislature, pursuing policies like ending cash bail and abolishing for-profit prisons. Progressives coalesced behind the Bay Area lawmaker last year as other candidates jockeyed for the attorney general appointment, a seat opened by Xavier Becerra’s move to the Biden cabinet.

But a different tone is reverberating throughout California politics and nationally as Democrats ratchet up their law-and-order rhetoric under pressure from the right. Biden urged more money for police officers during his first State of the Union speech last week, repudiating the “defund the police” rallying cry. Similarly, Newsom sought hundreds of millions of dollars to combat retail theft after the brazen looting of Louis Vuitton and other luxury shops in California last year made international news. politico.com

Big Cities Continue to Grapple with Violence Epidemic
U.S. Cities’ Surge in Shootings Rattles Once-Safe Seattle
Long one of America’s safest cities, Seattle had 612 shootings and shots-fired incidents last year, nearly double its average before the pandemic. The city has just experienced its two worst years for homicides since the 1990s, when murder rates were at all-time highs. Gunfire has erupted all across surrounding King County, not just in neighborhoods plagued by violence.

Seattle is one of many U.S. cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York, that have seen shootings and killings jump since the onset of the pandemic. Several cities, including Albuquerque, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore., endured their deadliest year ever in 2021.

Officials around the country are struggling to understand why. They point to a range of factors such as the social and institutional chaos wrought by the pandemic, which stalled efforts by community groups that steer young people away from crime. Officials also cite fallout from the sweeping protests over police killings, which led to a push to defund the police and a pullback by officers. Such protests were especially persistent in Seattle, where demonstrators took over a section of the Capitol Hill neighborhood for weeks in 2020.

About 360 officers left Seattle’s force in the past two years, leaving about 950 in the department to battle the rise in shootings. At the beginning of the pandemic, Seattle had 1,305 officers. Stops and other activity initiated by officers dropped by 27% in 2021, and police response times reached historic highs, according to the department. wsj.com

Philadelphia reaches 100 homicides for 2022, outpacing last year

US: 81.1M Cases - 993.8K Dead - 56M Recovered
Worldwide: 458.7M Cases - 6M Dead - 392.1M Recovered

Former Senior Loss Prevention Executive
Know of any fallen LP exec? Let's remember & recognize.

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 353  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 706
*Red indicates change in total deaths

America Is Moving On From COVID
COVID cases continue to plummet as America moves on
Why it matters: COVID precautions have already been lifted across most of the country as pandemic fatigue runs deep. The virus will probably be with us for the long term, but these improving metrics show Americans are moving on with their lives more safely.

The big picture: In the post-Omicron, post-vaccination world, case counts aren't a very good indicator of how severe the pandemic is — a sentiment the CDC has embraced and worked into its official guidance.

By the numbers: Daily deaths fell by 24% over the last two weeks, from an average of more than 1,900 the week of Feb. 23 to 1,451 over the past week. Cases fell by 48% over the same time period, and were averaging around 40,000 a day the week of March 8. axios.com

COVID's Transformative Retail Impact
How the pandemic changed the way we shop, work, invest & get medical care
It was two years ago Friday that the World Health Organization officially declared the then-rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Many of us waved goodbye to co-workers as we headed home for what was supposed to be a two- or three-week stint in mid-March 2020.

But, from that point on, COVID-19, the name given in February 2020 to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, turned our worlds upside down. Millions of people globally got sick, and more than 1 million died in the U.S. alone. Jobs were lost, and the government sent out unprecedented stimulus checks as a lifeline. Restaurants, salons, gyms and beloved local businesses closed, many for good.

Social distancing helped sell the idea of contactless payments to Americans.

The pandemic arrived, and suddenly contactless payments became all the more appealing: Instead of handing cash to a cashier or touching buttons on a ticketing machine, shoppers could tap their phones or cards against a terminal and avoid that extra interaction.

Companies thank their workers — for now.

Some of the largest employers in the U.S., including Amazon Inc. and Walmart Inc. have changed their attitudes toward their workforces, which some have started describing in their annual reports as “human capital.” Amazon, which has been accused in the past of mistreating employees, said in its latest annual report that it “strives to be Earth’s best employer.”

Online shopping got faster and better.

The pandemic accelerated the shift to e-commerce as millions of Americans turned to online shopping in 2020 to a degree they never had before. Shoppers have now become accustomed to all things being delivered to their doorstep, from groceries to clothes to mattresses. It’s easy to forget that, not too long ago, delivery service was a far more fussy perk that often came with high fees, high purchase minimums and long waits. marketwatch.com

Pharmacies Pour Cold Water on Biden's New COVID Plan
Test to Treat: pharmacists say Biden’s major new Covid initiative won’t work
A major new Biden administration initiative to facilitate access to Covid-19 antivirals will have a limited impact and fail to mitigate certain health inequities, major pharmacist groups argue, because pharmacists are restricted from prescribing the pills.

Announced in Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, the “Test to Treat” program is meant to address the maddening difficulty Americans have had in accessing Covid-19 treatments. The administration will channel newly increasing stocks of antiviral pills to major retail pharmacies that have in-house clinics, providing one-stop testing and antivirals access.

Major participants include some 250 Walgreens stores, 225 Kroger Little Clinics and 1,200 CVS MinuteClinics. CVS clinics in particular are staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants, authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prescribe the two currently available Covid antivirals, Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ molnupiravir.

In a 9 March letter to Biden calling for pharmacists to be granted authority to prescribe these pills, 14 organizations representing pharmacies and pharmacists insisted Test to Treat’s impact will be compromised by the fact that such in-house clinics are relatively limited in number and largely in urban areas. theguardian.com

Yearly COVID Shots?
Pfizer CEO: Fourth shot of COVID vaccine "necessary"
A fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be necessary in order to maintain manageable levels of hospitalizations and mild infections, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Driving the news: While fourth doses are already authorized for some immunocompromised people, NIAID director Anthony Fauci said last month that the possibility of another round of boosters was being "very carefully monitored."

What they're saying: Bourla said it was possible that COVID-19 boosters could become a yearly occurrence, much like the flu shot. axios.com

Covid-19 Shuts Down Plants in China, Hitting Apple Supplier Foxconn, Auto Makers

Here's what could lie ahead for the third year of the pandemic

WHO: Americas reported 63% of world's COVID cases during 2 months