Chicago alderman wants to charge Walgreens after stores close over rampant theft instead of targeting the criminals behind it

A Walgreens store in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood is set to close in June after the company cited theft, violence, and safety concerns, sparking anger from elected officials and community leaders who say the shutdown will hurt seniors and residents who rely on the pharmacy for medication.

WGN News reporter Angelica Sanchez reported from the South Side that local leaders are calling on Walgreens to reverse its decision to close the store at 8628 South Cottage Grove Avenue, arguing that the company should redesign the location rather than leave the neighborhood.

But Sean Reynolds, host of the news and commentary YouTube channel News For Reasonable People, said the response from some local officials shows how political blame often shifts away from crime and toward the businesses that finally decide they cannot absorb the losses or risks anymore.

Walgreens Says Theft And Violence Drove The Decision

Sanchez reported that elected officials and community leaders gathered in Chatham to oppose the closure, saying thousands of people in the neighborhood rely on that Walgreens location for essential goods and prescriptions.

According to Sanchez, Walgreens said in a statement to WGN News that the store has experienced higher levels of theft and violent incidents, and that ongoing safety challenges have made it difficult to maintain a secure environment for employees and customers.

The company said it was not an easy decision.

That explanation is important because it puts the closure in a broader context than a company simply pulling out of a neighborhood without reason. Walgreens is saying the store became too difficult to operate safely, and whether local leaders agree with the choice or not, theft and violence are not small issues for a business that has to protect workers, customers, inventory, and its own financial stability.

Sanchez reported that Walgreens plans to close the store on June 4. Prescriptions will be transferred to nearby locations, and patients at the Chatham store will be eligible for home delivery for at least 90 days while the closure unfolds.

Community leaders, however, say that is not enough for residents who have treated the location as a convenient and familiar stop, especially seniors who may not be able to easily travel to another pharmacy.

Local Leaders Want A Redesign, Not A Shutdown

At the press conference covered by Sanchez, speakers argued that other Walgreens locations with theft problems had been offered redesigns rather than closures.

One speaker pointed to another location, saying, “When 12th and State Street had loss prevention, they redesigned.”

The speaker also pushed back against any suggestion that the Chatham neighborhood is broken, saying the residents behind them have good jobs, include retirees, and want “a quality medicine option in their neighborhood.”

That point reflects the real frustration felt in many communities when a major retailer leaves. The people most affected are often not the people causing the problems, and for seniors or people with chronic health conditions, losing a nearby pharmacy can create a daily burden that is easy to underestimate from outside the neighborhood.

Still, the hard question is whether a private company can be expected to keep operating a store it says has become unsafe, especially if the city cannot or will not control the conditions that made the store unworkable in the first place.

Toward the end of the press conference, Sanchez reported, one alderman said officials planned to reintroduce an ordinance aimed at corporations that receive TIF money for development and later leave the neighborhood. Under that proposal, corporations could be forced to pay or be held accountable in some form for those public funds.

Reynolds Says The Anger Is Pointed In The Wrong Direction

Reynolds, reacting to the story on News For Reasonable People, focused heavily on the idea that Walgreens was being treated as the villain for closing a store after repeated problems with theft and violence.

He said one Chicago alderman had described the closure as “first-degree corporate abandonment,” a phrase Reynolds mocked as both politically dramatic and disconnected from how businesses actually work.

“First-degree corporate abandonment. Is that even a thing?” Reynolds asked, before arguing that Walgreens was not abandoning the community so much as making a business decision after safety issues and theft made the location too risky.

Reynolds said that if a store is being “robbed blind” and experiencing repeated violent incidents, corporate leaders will eventually look at the numbers, the insurance risks, the safety concerns, and the liability, then decide it no longer makes sense to stay open.

His commentary was blunt, and at times sharper than the WGN report, but his central argument was straightforward: elected officials should be asking why the store became unsafe rather than threatening punishment after the company decided to leave.

That point is worth considering because both things can be true at once. The closure can be harmful to seniors and residents, and the conditions that led to it can still be the real problem that needs to be addressed.

Alderman Hall Warns Of Harm To Families And Seniors

Reynolds cited comments from Alderman William Hall, who held the news conference with community members to denounce the closure.

Hall said Walgreens should be charged with “first-degree corporate abandonment” and argued that the company’s decision would hurt families, seniors, and residents who depend on the pharmacy.

According to Reynolds’ reading of the controversy, Hall warned that the closure could create a kind of “medicine drought” for seniors and people with chronic health conditions who need access to prescriptions close to home.

That concern should not be brushed aside. A pharmacy is not just another retail store for people who cannot drive far, cannot easily use delivery apps, or depend on routine medication access to manage serious health issues.

But Reynolds argued that this concern should have appeared earlier, when the store was allegedly being hit by theft, disorder, and violence. In his view, the outrage came too late, after years of conditions that made the store less attractive to operate.

He said the community and city leaders should have been asking how to make the area safer and how to prevent criminal behavior from driving out businesses long before Walgreens reached the point of closure.

Lopez Questions Where The Outrage Was Before

Reynolds also highlighted remarks from Alderman Raymond Lopez, a Democrat, who said he understood the community’s frustration but questioned why the anger was not directed at crime sooner.

“Where was that anger when the stores in our communities were under years and years of assault by criminals allowed to shoplift, vandalize, and destroy neighborhood institutions?” Lopez said, according to Reynolds’ discussion of the issue.

Lopez’s comment cuts to the core of the debate because it does not deny the pain of the closure, but it asks why the public response often becomes loud only after the business announces it is leaving.

Reynolds agreed with Lopez and said that calling the closure an insurance matter misses the reality of how business risk works. He argued that insurance does not magically erase repeated losses, lawsuits, safety incidents, higher premiums, and the possibility that customers or employees could be hurt during violent incidents.

That is a practical point that often gets lost in political arguments about retail closures. Companies may be large, but individual stores still have to make sense financially and operationally, and if a location becomes a constant safety problem, a corporation may decide the risk is no longer worth it.

A Wider Pattern Of Retail Pullbacks

Reynolds connected the Chatham Walgreens closure to similar retail shutdowns in other cities, mentioning places such as Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, where stores have also closed after concerns about theft, disorder, and safety.

He said these closures are often framed as corporate cruelty after the fact, even though the same stores may have dealt for years with shoplifting, threats, fights, vandalism, and other incidents that made the locations harder to run.

He also noted that retail is already under pressure from online shopping, which means brick-and-mortar locations facing heavy theft and safety problems can become easier targets for closure when companies review their store networks.

That broader context does not remove the local impact in Chatham, but it helps explain why Walgreens may not view the store as an isolated public relations issue. From a corporate perspective, it may be one struggling location among many in a changing retail economy.

Sanchez reported that community leaders want Walgreens to redesign the store and stay, while Reynolds argued that a redesign cannot solve the deeper problem if criminal behavior and safety risks continue around the business.

The Real Cost Falls On Residents Who Did Nothing Wrong

The most frustrating part of the story is that the people most likely to suffer from the closure may not be the people who created the conditions that led to it.

Seniors who need medicine, workers who stop there on the way home, families who use the store for basic goods, and residents who simply want a reliable neighborhood pharmacy may now lose that convenience because theft and violence made the store harder to operate.

That is why the debate should not stop at blaming Walgreens or blaming local residents in broad terms. The sharper question is what city leaders, law enforcement, prosecutors, businesses, and community groups are willing to do so that stores serving vulnerable residents are not gradually pushed out by repeated criminal activity.

Sanchez’s report showed the immediate community concern over losing the Chatham pharmacy, while Reynolds’ commentary argued that threatening the company after the fact avoids the harder conversation about why the store was closing in the first place.

Walgreens says the location is scheduled to shut down June 4, with prescriptions transferred and temporary home delivery offered to patients.

For Chatham residents, the closure is a loss. For city leaders, it is also a warning that if crime and disorder are allowed to make basic retail unsafe or unprofitable, the consequences eventually land on the very communities that most need those stores to stay.