In a remarkably unwise move, the state made theft of $950 or under a misdemeanour, hugely disincentivising police officers to investigate shoplifting - which became a plague. In one notorious incident, in 2023 a Whole Foods Market in the centre of the city had to close down after a year due to constant crime. Police logged 568 emergency calls over 13 months which included repeated fighting, employees being threatened with guns and knives, as well as public defecating on the shop floor; one day a 30-year-old man died of an overdose in the store toilets. The owners of city’s Westfield shopping mall also gave up, citing ‘un­safe con­ditions for cus­tomers, re­tail­ers, and em­ploy­ees’. After the former mayor convinced a Safeway not to close, one observer noted that the standards of civility in the city ‘are so low that keeping a grocery store open for an extra few months as it closes due to crime is considered a mayoral press conference achievement’. One of the strange things about American life is that, while…