The owner at Rains tells me after five break-ins in about three weeks, she made the sudden decision to permanently close. Staff here are putting pressure on the city to look after small businesses dealing with ongoing challenges with crime.
...KATU asked why Landolfo decided to close now, instead of keeping doors open through the holiday shopping season.
"The products that are being targeted are the very expensive winter products and I just felt like the minute I get those in the store they’re going to get stolen," she said.
Landolfo said she's worried about her employees, and no longer sees this location as a feasible business model.
"The problem is, as small businesses, we cannot sustain those types of losses and stay in business. I won’t even go into the numbers of how much has been out of pocket," she said.
When Rains was broken into in late October, KATU reached out to Mayor Ted Wheeler's office.
His team said they're working to increase funding for business repair grants through Prosper Portland. Landolfo said that's not enough.
"Paying for glass that’s great, but that is so surface and does nothing for the root cause of the problem, so it’s never going to change," she said.
The mayor's office also said they participated in a retail safety summit in October, and cited recent efforts to streamline the permitting process for things like storefront lighting.
KATU asked how that work is going and is still waiting to hear back at this time.
Local game store near us. Been opened as long as I can remember is closing due to 29 break ins. 13 successful. People go in, grab a shit ton of easy to steal stuff like Pokémon and magic, then leave. Owner saw a liquor store opening up and decided to close up, realizing things would be worse.
As a small business owner myself I could hear the sadness and disappointment while reading that.
It’s really hard to put yourself out there and start your own business and then you have to deal with horrible people taking advantage of a broken system.
Spartan2470 on November 28th, 2022 at 16:04 UTC »
Here is the source of this image. Per there:
According to KUTU:
Edit: As some have pointed out, KATU is owned by Sinclair.
hotsizzler on November 28th, 2022 at 17:33 UTC »
Local game store near us. Been opened as long as I can remember is closing due to 29 break ins. 13 successful. People go in, grab a shit ton of easy to steal stuff like Pokémon and magic, then leave. Owner saw a liquor store opening up and decided to close up, realizing things would be worse.
Jumbojym69 on November 28th, 2022 at 20:56 UTC »
That was so sad.
As a small business owner myself I could hear the sadness and disappointment while reading that.
It’s really hard to put yourself out there and start your own business and then you have to deal with horrible people taking advantage of a broken system.