California's Proposed Law to Prevent Employees From Confronting Shoplifters Would Be a Disaster

“I’m new to San Francisco. Is it optional to pay for things here?”

Thomas Baltimore Jr., the chairman and CEO of Park Hotels and Resorts, announced earlier this month that his company would stop paying a $725 million loan on two of San Francisco’s largest hotels, Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55.

Baltimore cited low demand and “concerns over street conditions” as reasons to stop payments on the hotels, which will be returned to the lender.

The decision is another blow to downtown San Francisco and California, which has experienced a massive outflow of people and businesses. In fact, the list of companies that have left the Golden State is far too long to enumerate in a single article and includes established Fortune 500s such as Hewlett-Packard and Chevron, as well as rapidly growing ones such as Snowflake, Palantir, and Tesla.

There’s no single reason companies are abandoning California in droves. Aggressive lockdown policies likely didn’t help, and California’s tax and regulatory climate also played a role. And then there is the problem of crime, which Park Hotels discreetly sidestepped.

Few would deny crime is a growing concern in the Golden State, especially in major cities. In 2021, New York Times journalist Thomas Fuller went to a San Francisco Walgreens to buy a toothbrush and saw a man walk into the store, grab a bunch of beef jerky, and walk out.

“I’m new to San Francisco,” Fuller said to the clerk. “Is it optional to pay for things here?”

Fuller was referring to what he called an “epidemic of shoplifting,” which he traced to changes in California law that reclassified thefts as misdemeanors if the stolen goods totaled less than $950. Videos on social media show people walking into stores, loading up on goods, and walking out.

Read the rest of this article on The Washington Examiner.