Whole Foods’ temporary closure at 1185 Market St. highlights San Francisco’s safety challenges.Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
Aug. 14, 2023 (SFChronicle.com)
A week before Whole Foods abruptly closed in San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood, an employee flagged down a Tenderloin police patrol. It was April 5, and a woman had just robbed the store, the worker said.
Officers confronted the woman, Deidre Davis, who resisted arrest before she was detained and booked in jail, according to a police report. Two days later, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ office charged Davis with second-degree robbery, resisting arrest and use of a deadly weapon — a glass bottle.
The 25-year-old woman was accused of stealing a “single bottle of prosecco” from the grocery store, according to her attorney, Jack Lamar, a San Francisco deputy public defender. The Public Defender’s Office declined to make Davis available for an interview.
The case highlights the city’s complex public safety challenges and a legal system that officials and experts say must grapple with those stealing to survive, in contrast to organized criminals looking to profit.
Thefts were hardly unusual at the Whole Foods, which was a hotbed of retail crime after it opened in March 2022, according to shoppers and Supervisor Matt Dorsey. Davis’ arrest marked one of the final incidents before the grocery store at 1185 Market St. announced a temporary closure. Four months later, it remains closed.
Retail crime, exacerbated by mental illness and homelessness, has been a major challenge for downtown and Mid-Market merchants, according to business owners and landlords. Plunging foot traffic due to remote work and diminished tourism and high business operating costs are also major factors.
“I sincerely hope that her case is not being used to fuel a false and disturbing narrative that blames unhoused and mentally ill individuals for all the city’s woes,” Lamar said in a statement to the Chronicle. “The most vulnerable members of our community need treatment and compassion. Shoplifting is a crime of desperation and poverty. We are in Ms. Davis’ corner and will zealously defend her in court. Our office is also working to connect Ms. Davis with community-based services that can address her needs.”
Neither the Public Defender’s Office nor the District Attorney’s Office disclosed whether Davis was diagnosed with mental health conditions. It wasn’t clear whether she is homeless.
Police received hundreds of 911 calls regarding the store in the 13 months it was open, and shoppers told the Chronicle that they regularly saw people stealing food and alcohol during that time. A man fatally overdosed on fentanyl and methamphetamine in a store bathroom in September.
Whole Foods said in April that the closure was “to ensure the safety of our team members.” The Amazon-owned company did not respond to requests for comment on the Davis case, nor has it said when or whether the store will reopen.
It wasn’t Davis’ first time behind bars: She was out on bail on two other cases, and she wasn’t eligible for parole after being convicted last year for battery in a different case, according to the District Attorney’s Office. In 2017, she was convicted of assault.
Davis faces an ongoing case after being jailed for weeks and multiple court hearings over four months. She was recently referred to diversion by a state judge. The program is an alternative to prosecution and incarceration, meant to connect people to treatment providers.
On Thursday, she appeared in court but was found not suitable to be transferred to Drug Court. A suitability hearing was scheduled for Monday to potentially transfer her to Behavioral Health Court, which is meant to aid people with mental health issues.
District Attorney Jenkins told the Chronicle last month that her office takes into account a suspect’s background when seeking punishment or treatment.
“You have to make sure that there is some proper form of accountability. That depends on the type of offender, that it depends on their individualized situation. Some of our folks are struggling with addiction. That’s why they’re stealing to support their habit. We need to make sure that we are getting them into drug court. We are getting them treatment if they’re stealing, because this has become the mode to take care of themselves,” Jenkins said.
She said there was “stronger accountability” needed for “a repeat offender who continues to violate the law no matter what we do.”
Jenkins said an obstacle to the city’s prosecution of retail crime stems from Proposition 47, passed in 2014, which raised the value threshold for stolen goods to $950 for felony theft charges. Thefts of goods under $950 in value are typically classified as misdemeanors.
“Where we are struggling right now is to the extent that retail theft is a misdemeanor, so (if) under $950 is stolen, those misdemeanors are diversion eligible by statute. And so trying to ensure that we can even find a method of accountability for repeat offenders of misdemeanor petty theft is very difficult in the environment that we have right now,” Jenkins said. “That is a really tough space that we’re in right now.”
Charis Kubrin, a criminology professor at UC Irvine, said she was “sympathetic” to the district attorney’s challenges but believes the impact of Prop. 47 on retail crime has been overstated. Kubrin co-authored a 2018 study of Prop. 47 that suggested the measure had no effect on robbery or other violent crime trends statewide in the years after it was passed, though larceny and motor vehicle thefts increased moderately.
The $950 threshold is in line with other states, and before the change, people convicted of petty theft were being sent to state prison, contributing to overcrowding and a 2011 Supreme Court decision that ordered a reduction in inmate population, she noted.
As in Davis’ case, alleged theft of goods under the $950 threshold can result in felony robbery charges if the person uses violence or threats.
The district attorney’s charges say Davis stole “by means of force and fear” but didn’t specify her actions.
Many retail thieves are never caught. Those who are arrested are typically charged with misdemeanors, said Neil Hallinan, a defense attorney at Hallinan Law Firm who isn’t involved in the Davis case. “In my experience, retail theft rarely becomes a felony,” he said.
Under state law, petty theft misdemeanor charges have maximum fines of $1,000 and six months in jail. Felony robbery charges can lead up to $10,000 in fines and up to nine years in prison for first-degree robbery and five years in prison for second-degree robbery.
Hallinan is skeptical that harsher penalties would deter retail crime. He sees retail crime rooted in some of society’s deepest challenges: inequality, lack of job training and education, and cost burdens such as having children to feed.
“This is really a poverty issue,” he said.
Historically, San Francisco has seen high property crime, particularly thieves smashing car windows to steal bags and laptops. However, its violent crime rate is relatively low compared to other major U.S. jurisdictions.
Reported robberies dipped since 2020 but are up slightly in the past year, according to police data. Officers have previously said retail crime is underreported.
The Mid-Market area where Whole Foods opened has also struggled for decades with crime, homelessness and drug use. A void in office workers, government staff and tourists in the area and across the city has only exacerbated the challenges, Kubrin said.
“We have rising rates of homelessness, mental health challenges, poverty and inequality that are exacerbated in a place like San Francisco, and you have a pandemic that changed people’s routine activities,” Kubrin said. “When people move out of the city or don’t traverse this part, it creates opportunity.”
“Crime is a piece of the puzzle,” she said. “It is not the entire puzzle.”
Chronicle staff writer St. John Barned-Smith contributed to this report.
Reach Roland Li: roland.li@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @rolandlisf
Written By Roland Li
Roland Li covers commercial real estate for the business desk, focusing on the Bay Area office and retail sectors.
He was previously a reporter at San Francisco Business Times, where he won one award from the California News Publishers Association and three from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.
He is the author of “Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports,” a 2016 book on the history of the competitive video game industry. Before moving to the Bay Area in 2015, he studied and worked in New York. He freelanced for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other local publications. His hobbies include swimming and urban photography.
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